86 pages 2 hours read

Ralph Ellison

Invisible Man

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1952

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Essay Topics

1.

In 2013, Invisible Man was temporarily banned from local high school reading lists by a North Carolina school board. Is this book appropriate for a high school audience? Why, or why not?

2.

Choose a female character in the novel (Mary, Emma, Sybil, etc.). What role does she play in the story? How is she characterized, and how does Ellison’s characterization influence the reader’s perception of her? Use textual support for your thoughts. 

3.

Choose another work of Ellison’s (either an essay from his nonfiction volumes Shadow and Act and Going to the Territory or his fiction works Flying Home and Other Stories or Juneteenth). Does the other work show signs of Ellison’s ideas about social progress and conditions evolving over time? If so, what are the differences between Invisible Man and the work? If not, what are the similarities? Use the texts to support your argument.