Invisible Man- Passage Analysis

One particularly interesting passage was the story the narrator overheard about Ras near the end of the book. Besides it being one of the funnier ones in the novel, it also gives as little insight into the crazy Ras the Destroyer. The passage details how Ras was charging around demanding that everyone rally up and destroy, I would assume, every last piece of white influence in the city. This demand is contrasted by the way the two people are talking about him. Ras is giving orders as to what everyone should be doing, as if he was in charge. He apparently seems to believe he's the destined leader of his people. The person telling the story stresses that it was a direct command. However, the two people seems to have little respect for him. Both refer to him as if he was a complete lunatic, which conveys an impression that the event really has nothing to do with Ras. This is backed up by the fact that someone else leaned out a window and joked at him. In response, Ras takes out a gun and begins blasting away up at the window. He really wants to be in control, but he really isn't. The people of the community could care less about him.

His appearance also seems to stress a backward leap for blacks. He dressed up as a tribal leader, with a lion skin on his back and a spear and shield in his hands. His additional riding of a black horse makes for an image of actual Africa, and even the storyteller remarks that his spear is "one of the kind you see them African guys carrying in the moving pictures" (Ellison 563). Ras seems obsesses with his alleged African roots, and combined with his behavior throughout the novel it becomes apparent that Ras really believes that the black race belongs more in Africa than in America. His actions seem to say that everything relative to the white man is offensive and dangerous to the black man, and that the white must be purged so the black can continue to live in the way he was meant. He even charges at armed police officers with the spear, rather than his gun. He seems eager to make a point.

Speaking of points, he sure seems to have gotten his across, or rather in, the police. During the attack on the police officers, he rears up his horse and then charges straight at them, and proceeds to spear them almost immediately on arrival. He manages to hit one down for sure, and then tears off to charge them again, only to be met by gunfire and then throws the spear before running off. The fact that his charge was that successful seems to state something. While in the middle of the cops, he attempted to use the spear while the cops attempted to pistol-whip him. The pistol punches were deflected by the shield, and the spear couldn't work up close, but they still continued to fight. They abandoned all reason and began to slap each other with brute strength. Rather than make an attempt to stop him on the first charge (because I highly doubt the police would not be able to see a large man with a spear and shield on a big black horse in the middle of the street) they perhaps even underestimated him? They weren't even able to kill him on the second charge, and whether or not the spear connected with anyone is unmentioned. Ras actually could claim this as a victory. This may be a statement about the underestimation of blacks by whites, it could be attempting to show that the police were less capable than a psychopath like Ras and really worthless, it might even be to say that the police were just as brutal as Ras considering they waited until he was up close to them before trying to pistol-whip him. And also, let's not forget the reference to the famous cowboy hero. Now that could very well mean that Ras, or someone as violent and fanatic as he, will soon return to vanquish his foes. A reminder that the violence will almost assuredly continue.