The narrator's life is filled with constant eruptions of mental traumas. The biggest psychological burden he has is his identity, or rather his misidentity. He feels a "wearing on the nerves" (Ellison 3) for people to see him as what they like to believe he is and not see him as what he really is. Throughout his life, he takes on several different identities and none, he thinks, adequately represents his true self, until his final one, as an invisible man.

The narrator thinks the many identities he possesses do not reflect him, but he fails to recognize that identity is simply a mirror that reflects the surroundings and the person who looks into it. It

The narrator always had a desire for people "who could give [him] a proper reflection of [his] importance" (Ellison 160). But there is no such thing as a proper reflection because his importance varies among different people. Subconsciously, he craves attention. He wants recognition and status and wants to be honored as someone special. He must feel that he "can have no dignity if his status is not special, if he is not essentially different"(Bloom 193); therefore he joins Brotherhood in order to distinguish himself, and to give himself an identity. He gets what he wants, recognition and fame, but it is not right he thought, for he is recognized only for his false identity. His identity positions him in the center of attention of thousands of people, yet he feels he is unseen. In the brotherhood of thousands of brothers, yet he feels no one knows him. This is his feeling of having a misidentity, but it is his conception of identity, which is mistaken.

To comprehend identity, it would be necessary to understand that, in a solitary state, there is no need for identity, because identity is like a name, a label a person wears for those around him to see. If a person is stranded on an island, what use will it be to have a name? The narrator thought he "was becoming someone else"(Ellison 328) when he acquired his new Brotherhood name, but a name change is simply a prescription for an identity change in the same human being. A name, or rather call it an identity, is dynamic and interchangeable; a being is static. Rinehart, in the story, is an identity, which to different people implied a gambler, a briber, a lover, and a Reverend, and even happened to be an identity the narrator incidentally acquires temporarily. The narrator does not understand the fact that "Man is ambiguous" (Bloom 113), that man is viewed differently from different perspectives, but how a man is seen will not alter the person he is.

The narrator believes he finally found his true identity when he realizes he is invisible to his surroundings; therefore, he assumes invisibility. However, invisibility is only his way to avoid reality. He is not invisible but simply not seen as what he thinks he should be seen as. He feels invisible only because no one really understands him, but, in reality, can any person be fully understood? A person can only be understood to an extent. Not even brother or sister, a best friend, a spouse, or a person's parents who created him or her can totally understand. As John Corry says "...[he is a] black nationalist ...and the here ... Here...he can enjoy his invisibility" (Corry 1). Nobody is seen exactly as who they want to be seen, but that does not mean they are invisible, just that the identity they are presenting might not be what the world expects. Despite the narrator's belief that, after his long journey, he has finally found the true understanding of identity and discovered his real identity, he is mistaken, for all the identities he experienced were real. He is the "same human individual," seen differently "only in appearance" (Griffon 161) and that shows invisibility is a false revelation. Every different person who sees him holds a unique perception of him, even if he does not like how he is perceived; it is still a unique identity of his very being, and that identity is real on a simple basis that it exist. Because identity is a tool for the beholder to assess the identified,

Some common words found in the essay are:
Negro Griffon, Jack Tobitt, American Mind, John Corry, Ellison Invisible, Allan Bloom, Lucius Brockway, Dr Bledsoe, South Probably, Invisible Throughout, true identity, bloom 113, identity people, identity identity, closing american mind, identity mistaken, identities none, narrator believes, narrator's identity, true self, proper reflection importance, finally found true, griffon 161,
Approximate Word count = 2314
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)