In the following essay, Dykema-VanderArk, a doctoral candidate at Michigan State University, examines how the individual journey of the "Invisible Man" can represent the larger American experience. He asserts that Ellison's novel concludes that "living as a true American requires faith—faith in equality and democracy when they are most out of reach, in the possibility of coming together when segregation predominates, in human complexity when society is obsessed with stereo types. "

From his earliest published writings in the late 1930s until his death in 1994, Ralph Ellison remained an outspoken commentator on American literature, culture, race, and identity, but his reputation has always rested most solidly on his one published novel, Invisible Man. Since its publication in 1952, Invisible Man has consistently been singled out as one of the most compelling and important novels of this century. Praised for both its artistic originality and its thematic richness...