Bloom, Harold. Alienation. Ed. Blake Hobby. New York: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2009. Print. Harold Bloom discusses the concept of alienation which the Invisible Man struggles with during his progression through young adulthood. The characterization of the narrator is compared to and appears to have inspiration from important American figures, including Frederick Douglas and Thomas Jefferson, whom both see a need for change. Bloom also connects the plot of the novel with the timeline of Invisible Man’s publication; during the 1940’s, when the modern civil rights movement is in its prime. The Invisible Man comments on the many injustices brought upon African Americans, comments which …show more content…
"Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man: A Critical Reevaluation." World Literature Today (1990): 1-8. Literary Reference Center. Web. 8 Dec. 2016. Yvonne Fonteneau analyses the criticism history of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and its ties to famous authors of Ellison’s time, including Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Herman Melville, and William Faulkner. These authors recognize the novel’s direction towards a time in America’s past that plenty of other authors would have never described to the degree that Ellison achieves; the diction and imagery forces the reader to recognize the complexity of American tradition. Just as the inspiration is described in several other articles, Ellison’s influence comes from his childhood in Oklahoma City, where music and achievements in a mostly African American middle class spoke for the abilities of any American, regardless of skin color. As the plot progresses, an important point made by Yvonne Fonteneau is the absence of any postindustrial challenges placed upon women from the novel; women are not recognizes as pleading for freedom stepping out of their comfort zones, as American history depicts in many cases. Moreover, Ralph Ellison’s work has been very commonly misinterpreted as a manuscript about war but in a less literal sense, it is about the war of inhumanity and the threat those who withhold freedom place upon minorities. The article then goes back into discussing the importance of the black mother’s regression and seems to slightly lead off topic towards the end of the article. This first few pages of this criticism may be ideal for the paper, but omitting the last portion may be