Racism in "The Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison

Invisible Man is a story told through the eyes of the narrator, a Black man struggling in a White culture. The narrative starts during his college days where he works hard and earns respect from the administration. Dr. Bledsoe, the prominent Black administrator of his school, becomes his mentor. Dr. Bledsoe has achieved success in the White culture which becomes the goals which the narrator seeks to achieve. The narrator's hard work culminates in him …

…alone and lets himself be killed the narrator decides to, "shake of his old skin" and go back into society.(580). He realizes that the people or institutions (Dr. Bledsoe and the Brotherhood) he reveres are as flawed as the system they are fighting. He grows to understand what the brotherhood and what Bledsoe could never understand, that individuality does not exclude being part of a group. Ultimately, he learned to be an individual for himself.