Invisible Man, a novel written by Ralph Ellison, proclaims the social issues brought upon African Americans and their struggle with personal individuality, racial standards, and the invisibility of black identity in the narrators life. The novel begins with the narrators description of him living in the basement of a building, free of charge, that was limited for rent to whites only. This area was his secret place, a place forgotten about and shut off during the nineteenth century (5). He was also stealing his source of electricity from the Monopolated Light and Power Company enabling him to illuminate his space with ,369 lightbulbs. Light is essential to the narrator because it confirms [his] reality and gives birth to [his] form (6). His living condition is a reminder to him of his complications with his social invisibility of trying to be an established black man in a white empowered society. His proclamation of being invisible, simply because people refuse to see [him] (3) is not due to him living underground away from the rest of the wo
rld, but because as a black man, he bestows very little to no importance. He explains that his invisibility is the result of other people refusing to see him, and he has lived his life without knowing who he is to himself. History has a way of boomeranging itself as it seems to be progressing, yet it comes back and unknowingly hits you. An example is the existence of institutionalized racism reigning heavy in this novel as well as in American society. This form of racism is identified by the attitudes and racial bias of people because of systematic laws being evident providing racially characterized disadvantages to the Black community and other minorities. Although the physical act of slavery was lawfully put to an end in 865, the mental effects of it have never fully been eradicated for we have truly been free when we discover who we are. This idea is proven today by the unlawful incarcerations, denial to property and residence, and mistreatment from those who still do not consider the black community to be people because of their skin color.