Individual man

Out of all the themes in Invisible Man, whether it be the radical ideas of communism and their abstracted use of the black community or whether it be the mindset of White's regarding that black community, I have always found the struggling of individuality and invisibility to be the most interesting. 

The narrator throughout the book consistently struggles to understand who he his, what purpose he serves, and how to achieve that identity. Yet, he never reveals his true name... and for the majority of the book he goes by an alter-ego which we still don't know the name of. This struggle of identity might have served a different purpose then what I perceived, but literature is extremely interpretative. I think Ellison meant for this individuality to be looked at as a historical lens, because the brotherhood acts in a way as if the narrator were an abstract idea instead of an actual person. Brother Jack seems to be wonderful and magnificent paying copious amounts of money to the Narrator and giving him lodging, but he turns out to only want the narrator for what he can do... and then Brother Jack attempts to control what he says by saying things such as "So it isn't a matter of whether you wish to be the new Booker T. Washington, my friend. Booker Washington was resurrected today... He came out from the anonymity of the crowd and spoke to the people". So essentially, the narrator isn't speaking for himself he is acting as a mouthpiece for Booker Washington, he has to take up an identity and change his manner of being to suit the needs of the mass. The purpose of the brotherhood itself was just that "We do not shape our policies to the mistaken and infantile notions of the man in the street. Our job is not to ask them what they think but to tell them". This is showing that the Brotherhood is trying its hardest to restrict people's freedom of thought and expression, and this leads into the restriction of history... on one side of the face of Brotherhood we can see that they are powerful unit attempting to express the will and want of the community, but the underlying truth is simple and obvious covered merely by its own optic white... that the Brothers just want to exert domination over the community. This in totality shows the stagnation of history as a result of these powerful organizations that are just as evil as its oppressors, as long as there is someone to control the people's will to such an extent were they feel subjugated and mislead there will be no revolution or progress of history