Ralph Ellison and Amy Tan, both well-known American minority writers, explore the lives of the minority races in America in their notable works of fiction. For instance, in Ellison’s “Battle Royal” and Tan’s “Rules of the Game”, both stories taken from the writers’ novels, the narratives explore the experiences of a protagonist belonging to a minority group living in America. On surface, the minority experiences of the protagonists of the two stories seem dissimilar, with the invisible man in Ellison’s
In the novel, Invisible Man, written by Ralph Ellison is about a young black man who overcomes racism and identity issues in his quest to find himself. During the late 1800's and early 1900's social conformity led to the conclusion that black identity, minstrelsy mask the true identity of African Americans in the novel. Blackface minstrelsy was an established nineteenth-century theatrical play in which white men caricatured blacks for sport and profit. Minstrel shows have been around for almost 200
The narrator’s absence of identity is primary presented in the prologue when he says “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me”. This shows how humanity is portrayed in which peoples identity are changed through lies, racism and blindness. Identity is defined as “the set of meanings that define who one is when one is an