Invisible Man and Reincarnation/Rebirth

As we read and discussed chapter 11 of Invisible Man (the chapter in which the narrator undergoes an “operation” if you will, in a somewhat sketchy hospital attached to the paint factory), a common idea of rebirth or reincarnation was brought up several times in our discussion. The way the narrator describes his experience in the hospital and how he feels after it, certainly supports this idea of a change in character or even life during this scene. I chose to go along with the idea of rebirth and look further into Elisson’s language and choice of words.

Ellison describes the hospital scene in specific detail sometimes hinting at the idea of a rebirth or reincarnation of the narrator through his diction. Although the comparison of the narrator coming out of the operation to a pregnancy or human birth type situation is mentioned, I want to focus more on the idea of a new life in general, not so much the metaphor of a childbirth.

As soon as the narrator wakes up, the reader can tell there is something off about the situation, with so much being unknown and things happening so quickly. One of his first thoughts is “Where was I?”, implying the obvious uncertainty of the situation but also that he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there, a thing that occurred before the “operation.” Of course there is the usual disorientation after a big surgery or medical procedure (assuming that is what occurred in the hospital) but later the narrator realizes that indeed he has no recollection of his arrival, “I tried to remember how I’d gotten here, but nothing came to mind. My mind was blank, as though I had just begun to live.” Here, Ellison definitely wants the reader to notice this idea of a new life, explicitly stating that the narrator felt like he had “Just begun to live.” Ellison could just have easily said something similar without using the word “live,” but the fact that he did, makes it seem all the more likely that the operation could serve as a metaphor for a new beginning.

Ellison also chooses his words very wisely and to the point that he uses the same word more than once to further emphasize his point. The narrator says many things such as “Rising up, to find myself …”, “I discovered now that my head…”, “When I strained my neck around I discovered that I was…” that all portray a theme of the unknown. It seems as though the narrator doesn’t know anything previous to the “operation” and has to start over from there. Maybe because I overanalyzed the text, or because Ellison purposefully chose it, the word “discover” to me, seemed to emphasize that the narrator did not remember things about the hospital or contraption before the operation, since he is figuring all of these things out now. In a normal story this could be an ordinary detail, but in this particular scene, especially after we learn he can’t recall his own name, it seemed specifically chosen and/or important. Additionally, the way Ellison repeats the word seems to point towards its emphasis. This word choice along with the ideas of general confusion, not remembering, and starting new from after the operation seems to me like Ellison is trying to make a point about what happened in the hospital. And this point is that the narrator doesn’t remember things before the operation and so he has to start new, entering a new stage in life, almost as if he had been reincarnated or born again.