The Invisible Man’s Representation of Man, Adamic Characteristics, and the Fortunate Fall Kali Goding 12th Grade

Throughout the course of history, people have struggled with the question of God. Where did He belong? How should people worship Him? Does God even exist? As time progressed, faith in God has faded and diversified. The questions surrounding Him increased as belief faded, and people found themselves lost in the confusion of science – God – science – something. Ralph Ellison forged Invisible Man as a book of promise, demonstrating through the Narrator’s Adamic characteristics and interactions with church and church officials Ellison believes God to always be watching over man, even when man loses faith in God.

In the hope that he could reinstall faith into the people of America, especially his downtrodden brethren, Ellison wove scenes into the Invisible Man that defined America’s view of religion. Ellison believed that people had begun to love religion “as the defeated come to love the symbols of their conquerors” (Ellison 111). Through his reading of Hegel’s Phänomenologie des Geistes, Ellison recognized the relationship man was starting to form with God. Instead of having faith in God and following His word as truth, man allowed themselves to be conquered by the religion and came to love the idea of religion rather than the...