Invisible Man = Frederick Douglass

Because we are on the topic of the novel Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, I figured I would discuss one of the many figures that the narrator is compared to in the novel. The list of people that the narrator, or the invisible man as some people like to call him, include Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey, but the person I would like to focus on is Frederick Douglass. Although Brother Jack states that he wishes to mold the narrator into a newer and better form of Booker T. Washington, and there is mention of him being like Washington in the Battle Royal, the one historical figure that I see most in the narrator is Douglass. Since I did not really do research on Frederick Douglass, I thought I would do a little digging on his history to see if there were more connections between the two people.
Frederick Douglass was born in a slave cabin and eventually became a slave. Although it was unlawful for slaves to learn to read and write, Douglass did by giving away food in exchange for lessons. By the time he escaped slavery, he became a staunch abolitionist and experienced a meteoric rise to fame and prominence. He eventually became a trusted advisor to Abraham Lincoln and participated in the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention. The one point that I saw, which provided a distinct similarity was the fact that both the narrator and Douglass both experienced meteoric rises to prominence. The narrator rose to prominence in the Brotherhood in a relatively short period of time through his brilliant oratory skills similar to the way Douglass became a leading figure in the abolitionist movement because of his oratory skills. Another point of similarity is that Douglass lived his life by following three keys: take advantage of opportunities, believe in yourself, and use the power of the spoken language. These three things embodied Douglass as a person and I feel that they also are key characteristics of the narrator. The narrator uses his belief in himself to take advantage of the Brotherhood situation. By using his ability to move the audience emotionally through his pathos-driven speaking, he is able to translate his belief in himself to others believing in him. This also brings along the added benefit of making money and increasing his standing in society. Eventually his pathos-driven speaking adds the element of rationality and science to cause him to be the perfect fit to be the Brotherhood’s spokesperson. By knowing his abilities and his limits and by believing in himself, the narrator went from being nearly homeless looking for a job to being rather well-to-do. This is again exactly like Douglass as he used his ability to be eloquent to get close to the many prominent political figures of his day and eventually rise to unmatched prominence in the African American community. These are of course only come of the connections that exist between Douglass and the narrator as I only did some surface research to come up with the similarities. Deeper research would likely yield more common points as I do firmly believe that the narrator is more like Frederick Douglass than any other African American historical figure in the novel.