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ticed him. He is just regarded as an invisible man. In order to protest against it he resolves to change his way of life for he declares: “I went through the routine process of buying service and paying their outrageous rates. But no more, I gave up all that, along with my apartment, and my old way of life.”(Ellison, 2000: 5) In this view, by making his free decisions not to exist as he used to be, he finally realizes that he is condemned to be free.
 
With spiritual maturity, eventually the invisible black man in the visible white man's world is awakened by the harsh reality and illusion. Rejecting the public masks he has worn and the outward power that has ever controlled him, the protagonist moves toward dynamic inward center of strength—searching for the true self and the salvation of soul. He finally understands the nature of life. “Life is to be lived, not controlled；And humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.” (Ellison, 2000: 577) The young protagonist is aware that first he is a Negro American, then a universal invisible man, through the passage from darkness to light, from ignorance to enlightenment, from invisibility as a black to invisibility as an American. Under the black skin, being invisible, protagonist finally understands that there is not much to choose but return to the black heritage in order to acknowledge his status as a true man. This is his epiphany.
  
III.   Thematic Presentation Techniques
 
The creation of the book is not only due to Ellison’s intimacy with the life of African-American but also his writing techniques and skills. Ellison is an expert adept in expressing the themes by means of almost all the literary technical skills. In composing the novel, Ellison interwoven it with some unique techniques, such as blues, folklores and some symbols, which help to promote the theme. In a sense, Invisible Man is based on folk foundations. The protagonist’s gradual move from ignorance to epiphany and from repression to expression is spurred by folk forms. His acceptance of jazz and black folklore helps him keep his identity in the fast and maddening world of the North. In time he sees that without his folk tradition, without the “mother wit” inherited from the past struggles of black Americans, he is truly an Invisible Man. Besides, Ellison’s use of symbols also helps to reveal the themes of Invisible Man. To a large degree, the symbols of a novel indicate the sum of relationships of what the novel describes and the reality the author experiences. Ellison incorporates numerous symbols and archetypes (universal symbols) into Invisible Man, each providing a unique perspective on the plot and supporting the dominant themes of this novel. His application of blues, folklores and some symbols gives the presentation of theme much more tastes.
 
3.1    Blues, a Source of Courage and Strength for Identity
 
In literature, the delineation of music has long been used as a strategy to set up certain atmosphere for the developments of the plot or to set off the emotions of the characters, so does blues music in Ellison’s Invisible Man. Ralph Ellison bases his cultural and literary perspectives on his comprehension of the essence of blues, and plays blues notes into his cultural and literary thoughts in the form of letters. When writing Invisible Man, Ralph Elliso本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。