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The unnamed protagonist of Invisible Man tells his own story from a first-person point of view. The reader sees the world exclusively through the narrator’s eyes as he navigates a series of bizarre experiences and troubling encounters with both Black and white characters. The narrator’s account of events varies in reliability. There are times when the narrator’s perspective on events seems reliably reported, as when he arrives in New York City and struggles to find work there. More often, however, the narrator’s point of view takes on a surreal character that obscures reality. One example where reliability seems suspect comes during the narrator’s stay in the hospital, where he slips in and out of consciousness. Another example of questionable reliability occurs when the narrator watches as Tod Clifton runs across a busy street and gets shot by the police. The narrator’s description of Clifton’s death takes on a surreal quality that focuses less on Clifton than on the zooming cars and swooping birds. However, despite the number of surreal events in Invisible Man, the narrator’s perspective should not be dismissed as false. Instead, the narrator’s point of view shows just how surreal life as a Black man in the United States really is.
