Notes on the Invisible Women in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man

Abstract Questions about t he female characters in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man seem to elicit two types of response: The initial one is “What women?” since women clearly occupy peripheral roles in the novel. And then after Mary Rambo and the other female characters—that is, the old slave woman, the magnificent blonde, the rich sophisticate Emma, the anonymous seductress, and finally the prophetic and pathetic Sybil— are recalled, the second response is something like “Oh, those stereotypes” (Sylvander, 77-79). Both replies are virtually automatic and both are legitimate, given the factual details of the narrative. But we must not be misled by what can be seen with a quick glance; we must not neglect what lies hidden behind the mask and proclaim that the mask is the face. Instead, we must remember Ellison’s own witty admonition that the rind is not the heart and look for the concealed truth which lies beneath the stereotyped exteriors of his female characters. In his essay “Twentieth-Century Fiction,” Ellison contends that stereotypes, though indisputably one-dimensional and therefore oversimplified, frequently hide complex aspects of human character. Moreover, he adds that “the Negro has been more willing perhaps than any other artist to start with the stereotype, accept it as true, and then seek out the human truth which it hides” (S&A, 43). Perhaps this is also an appropriate procedure to follow when examining the female characters in Invisible Man; that is, “start with the [female] stereotype[s], accept [them] as true, and then seek out the human truth which [they] hide.” Perhaps by following this example, we will not be attempting merely to define female humanity but to recognize, as Ellison suggests, broader aspects of the humanity of all of us.