Tone and Language in The Invisible Man There are not many novels that can produce such a feeling of sorrow and jubilation for a character as Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. The range of emotions produced by the novel is so wide that it is impossible not to feel both. Invisible Man is a wonderfully well-written novel about an African American living in pre-civil rights America. The novel is an excellent example of a bildungsroman, a character who finds himself as the story progresses. The narrator (the invisible man) begins with a naive college student and ends with the young man realizing that his world has become one of "infinite possibilities." Ellison's writing techniques include visual imagery, irony, occasional satire, and endless examples of symbolism. All of these writing techniques help move the novel forward and benefit the book as a whole. Two techniques that Ellison used better than any other, however, are tone and language. Although Ellison used these techniques well, there were some harmful errors in his writing that damaged the credibility of the story. One of the most important aspects of any novel is its tone. Tone sets the pace of the novel and determines the type of emotional effect the anecdote will have on the reader. The tone of Invisible Man is, for the most part, a remarkable thing. Ellison's tone creates both a tragic and comedic response for the reader. Ellison's tone can be said to be "tragi-comic" (Bellow). This tone occurs "in the best pages of The Invisible Man...in which an incestuous Negro farmer tells his story" (Bellow) of having seduced and impregnated his own daughter. Through tone Ellison reveals how his invisible man thought he was invisible, as he learns that... halfway through the paper... of a character who has been presented primarily as a passive victim of experience" (Howe). With the exception of a few flaws, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is an excellent novel Ellison makes good use of many literary techniques needed to write a good novel, including satire, irony, symbols, imagery, and especially tone and language. all races and ages of people because of the language used and the heroic story of the young black man trying to make it in a predominantly white American society is truly a classic and should become more so as people of all the races look back at the symbolic struggle this young man faced Works Cited Bellow, Commentary by Saul “Man Underground,” June 1952 Ellison, The Invisible Man 1952 Howe, Irving “Review of Invisible Man,” The Nation. 1952