Ministry of Higher

Segregation in The Invisible Man

American Racism is reflected in many aspects, including education, employment, voting rights, immigration, citizenship, and so on. Racial discrimination in the United States has been a major issue since the slave era and the colonial era. The Invisible Man is Ellison’s masterpiece. It uses rich symbolism to illustrate the racial discrimination in America and the problem of black identity from the late 1920s until the beginning of the 1930s. American Racism is reflected in many aspects, including education, employment, voting rights, immigration, citizenship, and so on. Jim Crow Laws a collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation. It has a great impact on the increase of racial segregation in the United States. Its purpose to keep Black people always inferior. Overall, Jim Crow Laws forbade African Americans living in White neighborhoods. The narrator in The Invisible Man lives in a segregated racist south. Where Blacks are still poisoned by the ideology of slavery.
The novel’s main theme is the protagonist’s struggle to shape his individual identity in American society; Ellison incorporates his pen in order to deliver his message to his audiences. As a Negro living in a White-dominated society, it's unavoidable for the protagonist to go through racism and discrimination from the Whites. After going through a lot of outrageous experiences the narrator experienced shock while he searches for his identity. In the growth process, the Black youth began to know the definition of visibility and invisibility and transformed himself from visible man to invisible man again and again.
From the young’s inner change, the author presented the issue of racial discrimination
again and again.



The idea of equality is unbearable for Whites, but Black Americans continued their struggle to achieve their rights as American citizens. Jim Crow Laws allowed them to treat the Blacks unfairly and kept them separate from the whites.
⁸Invisible Man,p.132
These laws motivated the Blacks to migrate from the south towards the north hoping to find democracy and equal rights. Unfortunately, the African American Dream achieve their American dream turned into a nightmare, they found themselves in an unfair society full of racism and segregation in all aspects of life.

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