Power: Real or an Illusion?

 Upon reading Invisible Man, I found myself questioning whether or not the level of power and success that the narrator so desperately strives for is truly achievable. In its first few chapters, Invisible Man depicts the narrator in his youth, a man whose identity is completely defined by white validation and who is desperate to attain power under an oppressive, white society. However, one thing that the narrator does not realize is that the “authority” that he has worked for his whole life isn't true power, as it has been molded by white society to make black people complacent in the oppression of the very marginalized group that they are a part of. This “power” is limited, made to keep black people in “their place,” subordinate to white people, and works to prevent the origination and spread of ideology that threatens the legitimacy of a white-supremacist society. Invisible Man shows the distorted version of power that black people are able to attain under a racist society.

Mr. Bledsoe, the president of the college that the narrator attended, is extremely “successful,” and was once an inspiration to him: “I remembered the admiration and fear he inspired in everyone on the campus; [...] To us he was more than just a president of a college. He was a leader” (Ellison 116). Mr. Bledsoe proved that one could obtain great amounts of power by assimilating to white-supremacist culture and by catering to the needs of white people. But is that really what someone powerful should have to do? Is Mr. Bledsoe really that powerful if he constantly needs to pander to white people to maintain his power and status? The answer is no. Mr. Bledsoe is given just enough power so that he can lead the black community around him into complacency with systemic racism and white-supremacy. The narrator identifies the deceiving nature of Mr. Bledsoe’s “education” later on in the novel, “hadn’t he always taught us to live content in our place in a thousand unambiguous words? He had and I had believed him. I had believed without question his illustrations of the good which came of following the Founder’s path” (Ellison 106). Mr. Bledsoe does not have true power, as he must fit into the stereotype that white people assign him in order to maintain his status.

    Invisible Man shows the limited power that black people can attain through assimilating to racist, white-supremacist society. The novel tells us that the “power” that Mr. Bledsoe has is an illusion. However, this poses the question: If unable to attain “power” under a white-dominated society, how can the black people in Invisible Man become powerful? There is no clear answer yet, but I think that Ellison is suggesting that true power comes from understanding your own identity and no longer defining yourself by the stereotypes put in place by white people, “When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.” (Ellison 243).