In Invisible Man, recurring images of waves and rhythms create a reality in which everything has its own frequency and wavelength. This concept functions as an underlying theme that, when examined, is found to play into the idea of ​​the narrator's invisibility and help compose the overall metaphysical structure of the novel. This notion of frequency appears repeatedly in visual and auditory contexts, ultimately revealing the nature of the narrator's invisibility: living on a different wavelength.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The narrator begins simply: “I am an invisible man. » (Ellison 3) Immediately, this statement sparks thoughts in the reader's mind. on what this invisibility means: “I was surrounded by hard, distorting glass mirrors. When they come near me, they see… everything and anything except me. » (Ellison 3) Mirrors create exclusively visual images. The simplicity of the sentence structure contributes to its mysterious nature and although in the following lines the narrator gives an abstract explanation of what his invisibility is, the reader never reaches a literal explanation simply because the invisibility of the narrator is not literal. The narrator goes on to provide a more detailed description: “[I am] not one of your Hollywood movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, of fiber and liquid - and one might even say that I possess a spirit. » (Ellison 3) The ironic tone of this passage, shown by its sarcastic and satirical statements, conveys an awareness of his situation. There is a lot of optical imagery in the novel, which makes sense considering how central the idea of ​​invisibility is. An essential theme of the novel is of course race and civil rights, and it can be argued that the Invisible Man acts as a symbol of the struggle of black people in an oppressive society. As Richard Kostelanetz says: "Ralph Ellison defines the goal of novel writing as 'converting experience into symbolic action,' and this phrase incidentally captures the particular achievement of his novel, Invisible Man, in which he creates a narrator without noun… [which] represent in symbolic form the total historical experience of the most politically active element of the American Negro people. (Kostelanetz 5) The novel connects these two themes of race and optics, for example: “If it's optical white, it's the right white. » (Ellison 168) Not only does the word optic appear, but this phrase is strongly reminiscent of the racist phrase “the white man is right”. The notion of race is largely an optical idea (the very idea of ​​skin color) and is entirely socially constructed. The importance of color is emphasized here, and tying this to the proposed metaphysics of the novel, one can relate these ideas of race and color by considering that color is simply the reflection of different wavelengths of light, and so the idea of ​​frequencies once again plays a crucial role in the composition of the novel and the concepts it creates. In addition to the dominant optical imagery, an acoustic theme is also present. The last line of the novel, “Who knows except that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?” the two connect and create a contradiction with the first line. The idea of ​​invisibility is a purely visual phenomenon, however, the idea of ​​speaking on a "lower frequency" (Ellison 450) produces an auditory impression, which suggests that invisibility is more than visual. Creating the themes of optical and otic invisibility suggests that invisibility is not exclusivelyinvisible, but also inaudible. The idea and language of acoustics, including music, extends throughout the novel to provide insight into the metaphysics of invisibility and time. The narrator uses the ideas of rhythm and waves as an active way of describing the world he experiences. “The rhythms of uptown were slower and yet faster; a different tension hung in the warm night air. (Ellison 328) The idea of ​​a place having a rhythm, even a frequency at which it vibrates, appears here. The idea that it has a faster pace (higher frequency) or a slower pace (lower frequency) creates a dichotomy between fast and slow rhythms. Additionally, there is a musical language other than rhythm that is used to reinforce the underlying sense of musical time. “Tension”, although it has different meanings in different contexts, in this case has a musical meaning, given its association with rhythm. Tension is a fundamental idea of ​​Jazz, a musical style which is also a theme of the novel. Often, tension is created by dissonance or chords that need to be resolved. However, in this case there is a dichotomy between the fast and slow pulses of uptown. Wilfried Raussert, in “Jazz, Time, and Narrativity,” addresses this very idea in a different context: “the brief interruption of flow recalls the pauses in jazz by which rhythmic tension is achieved. » (Raussert 532) However, instead of an interruption of flow, Ellison uses the simultaneity of rhythms to create this tension. Like optical imagery, optical imagery also brings out the fundamental theme of race, with jazz being born out of black culture. These ideas of rhythm, pulse, and music contribute to the metaphysics of the novel to ultimately explain the narrator's invisibility. The concept of waves is also firmly anchored in the novel's notion of time, which is a fundamental element of the metaphysical identity of everything. As we showed above, the idea of ​​rhythm and waves is part of the feeling of a place. To expand on this concept, these ideas are also present in the perception of time. “Great invisible waves of time flowed over me, but this morning never came.” (Ellison 440) The word “waves” connotes a rhythm, a beat, and a pulse. Large suggests great width, which in turn creates the image of a slow, steady pulse evoking the notion of wavelengths. Slow, steady pulses convey a feeling of hypnotism, which contributes to the idea of ​​perpetually waiting for something, in this case, in the morning. The introduction of this conception of pulse in time further suggests a connection with rhythms and continues to suggest a world described by frequencies. “Invisibility, let me explain, gives a slightly different perception of time, you're never really in the rhythm. Sometimes you're early and sometimes you're late. Instead of the rapid and imperceptible flow of time, you are aware of its knots, those points where time stops or from which it jumps. And you slip into the breaks and look around. This is what we vaguely hear in Louis' music. (Ellison 7) This quote contains a lot of substance. Here the narrator not only breaks the fourth wall as he does at the beginning and in the epilogue, but he also attempts to communicate the concept of his invisibility. It uses the abstraction of a different perception of time, which has musical connotations. It again introduces the idea of ​​being offbeat, suggesting that the world has a rhythm and that it does not have the same time signature as the rest of the world. This idea, linked to the previously established concept of frequencies, creates the idea that it operates on a different wavelength than the.