Invisibility in I, Too, Sing America

        The poem, I, Too, Sing America, is about a black slave who is a servent to a white family. (The type of slave who lives indoors; cooking, cleaning, and doing general indoor house chores.) He/She says that whenever company comes over to the house, he is sent into the kitchen to eat (but in the eats well and "grows strong"). Tomorow, as the narrator states, nobody will ask him to eat in the kitchen, and the whites will see how beautfiul he is, and be ashamed. The book is roughly the same story; about a young black man struggling to gain an identity in a very racial, white society. The poem, seemingly about a slave eating dinner, really represents slavery and the African peoples' progress since slavery. Sending the narrator to eat in the kitchen is a sign of disrespect and failure to see past skin color. Slavery went on for years and years, but the slaves grew strong in hope that they would one day be free (like in the poem, "And grow strong."). The next verse of the poem is about how tomorrow, noone will dare send the him into the kitchen, and that they will be ashamed and see how beautiful he is. 'Tomorrow; really refers to the future, and how one day, the stregnth black people have gained will give them their freedom, and the white people will see past skin color for what they really are. The novel features many characters, like Mr. Norton and even a black man, Dr. Bledsoe, not seeing black people as equal. They are merely objects to them (points for Mr. Norton and stepping stones for Dr. Bledsoe). The two characters refuse to see the narrator for what he truely is which make him invisible, just like the slaves in the poem are only seen as cheap labour.

        At the begining of the novel, the narrator talks a lot about how being 'invisible' lets you do things you would never get to do or see in real life. In his state of invisiblity, he is able to steal power, gain knowledge, and grow as a person. When the slave in the poem is sent into the kitchen to eat, away from the company, he is made invisible because the company cannot be allowed to see him. The narrator is not allowed to have an identity, and therefore, is invisible. "But I laugh, and eat will, and grow strong." The narrator not only becomes physically strong from eating the good food, but also grows stronger mentally. The invisibility of the slave is comparable to the invisiblity of the man in the novel. His time being 'invisible' in the kitchen lets him learn more and grow stronger, just as the narrator of the novel does during his invisibility. With each remark of disrespect from the whites, the narrator becomes stronger and stronger in spirit, knowing that one day they will be treated equally.

        Invisible Man and I, Too, Sing America both examine how black people have struggled to gain an identity after slavery. The novel expresses itself through the life of a young black man struggling to discover who he is, while the poem is like a giant metaphor for the events during and after slavery. The fight for Africans in Amerca to created an identity for themselves has had many roadblocks. The blindness of the whites and their stubburness to see past the black skin of slaves made it very hard for slaves to ever be heard, because to everyone else, they were invisible. They did not get a say in anything, including their own lives. As Ralph Ellison says about invisibility in the novel, "You often doubt if you really exist" (p.4). It is awfully hard for anyone to make a difference or a name for themselves when they don't exist. Such as when the narrator attacks the man in the street (for calling him a racial term) and sees on the news that it was called a random "mugging". As the narrator knows, as many perks as being invisible may give you, it takes away your ability to make an impact on the world. Together, the poem and novel create a great picture of how invisibility made the fight for equilty and individualism very difficult for black slaves.