Next, the nature of the signifier will be examined. In the Prologue and the Epilogue, the invisible man calls himself only two things. He begins his narration with, "I am an invisible man,"(34) and on page six says, "The point now is that I found a home - or a hole in the ground, as you will... Call me Jack-the-Bear, for I am in a state of hibernation."(35) Just as being seen relates the individual to those around him, signifiers connect the individual to others:

A second point of interest while pursuing a Freudian critique comes on page fourteen, where the invisible man says, "I was the irresponsible one; for I should have used my knife to protect the higher interests of society."(19) This particular passage is rather complicated. The invisible man seems to be expressing guilt with the phrase "for I should have." Part of the complication of this sentence relates to a psychological problem that Freud deals with. The invisible man has not properly shifted his instincts, and because of this he is frustrated by society. Freud says, "The task here is that of shifting the instinctual aims in such a way that they cannot come up against frustration from the external world."(20) Furthermore, guilt is supposed to arise after an act of aggression is carried out. In fact, the first feeling of guilt came after the initial band of brothers killed their father. On this topic, Freud reviews earlier works and says:

Next, it is important to further explain the method behind selecting the Prologue and the Epilogue as the text from which to study the character of the invisible man. "The end was in the beginning," writes the invisible man on page 571.(13) This statement refers to Invisible Man as a framed story. Because the action of the Prologue and the Epilogue occurs after the action of the novel, the unity of these two pieces should be a part of critical analyses. Ellison explains the action of the Prologue and the Epilogue in his essay "The Art of Fiction: An Interview:"

Theories of Freud's "son," Carl Gustav Jung will be used next. Using his theories from Four Archetypes, several statements made by the invisible man in the Prologue and in the Epilogue will be examined. First, in the Prologue, the invisible man says, "I have been boomeranged across my head so much that I now can see the darkness of lightness."(25) Also, the invisible man, in the Prologue, explains why he is living underground by saying, "A hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action."(26) Both darkness and hibernation indicate aspects of a cave, and Jung has something interesting to say about the result of being in a metaphorical cave:

Another aspect of this fourth form is essential transformation, i.e., total rebirth of the individual. Here the renewal implies a change of his essential nature, and may be called a transmutation.(31)

What in the invisible man's character makes him look at the need to approach life through love and hate? The answer to this question relates to the concern he has with finding "meaning" in life. The following passage, drawn from Lacan's lecture "Alienation," will help answer this question:

Next, a brief background of each psychoanalyst will be given. According to the anthology The Critical Tradition, three stages exist at which psychoanalytic theory joins literature. That is, three minds can be examined: the mind of the author, the minds of the author's characters, or the mind of the reader as he reads.(7) The basis of this study is in the second of these two, the mind of the character. The theorists of use in this study are Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, and Jacques Lacan. As the father of psychoanalysis, Freud is an important theorist to reference. Despite the limitations of his theories, their usefulness still exists, especially as a background for Jung and Lacan. The Freudian text at work in this analysis will be Civilization and Its Discontents. In this text, Freud's theories about aggression and the death drive

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 5370
Approximate Pages = 21 (250 words per page double spaced)