Ralph Ellison's 1952 novel "Invisible Man," featuring an unnamed African American protagonist, is written in a style that Ellison later said was influenced by poet T.S. Eliot and incorporates elements of modern symbolism. Through following the struggles of the protagonist from high school up through his expulsion from an all-black college and on to New York where he gets involved with a political movement called the Brotherhood, Ellison is able to examine social and intellectual questions of individuality and personal identity and their relationship to the black nationalist movement, Marxism, and the racial reform policies of Booker T. Washington.
