"Man changes his identity as he passes from one stage or group to another"(1),this idea is conveyed by Ralph Ellison, the author of the Invisible Man, through an African- Americans transition from perspective success to alienation and an enlightenment of identity, which conform his identity. Along this path, our narrator changes his identity, and in doing so, fulfills the message of his Grandfather, losing his true character and ideals, becoming invisible. Despite Ellison's focus on the racial tension and restriction of the African- American race, he portrays a universal message relevant to all of society. A message of ever changing identity resulting in our own development of invisibility by "overcoming 'em with yeses, undermining 'em with grins, agreeing 'em to death and destruction, letting 'em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open" (16). Universally as humans our identity changes as our surroundings change, we adapt and conform to society's ideals losing self-identity; Ellison conveys this message as a universal through his symbolic color usage, blindness, and our narrator's invisibility, which is the enlightenment, which our narrator conceives.
             Ellison's use of color is relevant in his second stage of life, when he has just been rejected from college and searches fro a job which leads him to Liberty Paints where "Slowly, I measured the glistening black drops, seeing them settle upon the surface and become blacker still, spreading out suddenly to the edges" (200). Liberty Paints, a paint company who prides itself on its world-class color of optic white, appears to be a metaphorical company used by Ellison to portray societies view on racial superiority and segregation, yet, it is in this company that our narrator is assigned the task of adding ten drops of a black liquid to the white paint. These black drops or Ellison's later stories and less...