The Paper Motif in Invisible Man :: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

Ralph Ellisons Invisible Man depicts a realistic society where albumen people act as if black people ar less than human. Ellison uses papers and letters to show the narrators poor position in this society. Many papers seem to show good fortune for the narrator, but only provide false dreams. The narrators prize of a abbreviated case containing his scholarship first illustrates this falsehood take this prize and keep it well. Consider it a badge of office. Prize it. Keep developing as you are and some day it will be filled with important papers that will help shape the destiny of your people (32). The narrator is filled with satisfaction from receiving his scholarship and brief case but subconsciously knows of the shallowness of the superintendents heart felt speech. Ellison shows this subconscious knowledge through the narrators dream of receiving a letter of deep and truthful meaning And I did and in it I found an engraved document containing a short pass on in letters of gold To Whom It May Concern, I intoned. Keep This Nigger-Boy Running (33). Even though it is just a dream, the uninfected people actually do want to keep the narrator and his race running after false dreams. Another example of the bad associated with papers is when the brotherhood gives the narrator an envelope containing a new name on a piece of paper, replacing his identityThis is your new identity, Brother Jack said. Open it. Inside I found a name written on a slip of paper.That is your new name, Brother Jack said. Start thinking of yourself by that name from this moment. Get it down so that if you are called in the middle of the night you will respond. Very soon you shall be known by it all over the country. You are to answer to no other, understand (302)?The fact that the narrator has been given a new identity and is not sure which one is himself means that the he has no identity at all I would do the work but I would be no one except myself--whoever I was (303).The hospital relea se forms illustrate the white mans way of making the narrator less than human by depriving him of his work at the company the doctor will not let him work You arent ready for the rigors of industry. Now I want you to rest, undertake a period of convalescence.