To be seen, or not to be seen

I've been invisible before. We all have. Sitting in class, the teacher's calling on random students. Who hasn't shrunk away into their desk, pretended to jot something down in a notebook, or look away? Who hasn't walked away from a sad event or argument, wishing not to see anybody, to be alone and as a result not see anybody. We can choose to be invisible, as our narrator does in Invisible Man. His situation, however, is entirely different.

I cannot completely relate to the narrator. His invisibility comes about because of his skin color and the lack of identity that results from his color. He is alone in the world. A person becomes invisible in the worst times. For the narrator he is invisible because his life and dreams were shattered. Now he questions everything he once believed and prefers a life absent of people. The invisible man's lack of identity instills dormancy in his passions. Now, he lives in a basement, a cave covered in bright, bright lights. His aspirations were shattered by a serious of events which resulted in his expulsion at school. He realized that Dr. Bledsoe, a man our narrator once praised, fronts an easygoing, white-abiding demeanor in order to advance his own position. The invisible man's grandfather's words again ring in an already muddled mind. Electroshock zaps whatever is left. The man is pulverized inside, and it is no wonder he lacks a clear identity and chooses to keep himself.