Ralph Ellison 2
"Live with integrity, respect the rights of other people, and follow your own bliss," these are the words of Nathaniel Branden, a United States psychologist. One person who lived his life by this quote is the American author Ralph Waldo Ellison. Ellison's integrity and respect for others helped him become an important American literary figure. His most famous works reflected the culture and living conditions of African Americans in their fight for equality. In order that one be able to understand the literary significance of Ralph Waldo Ellison, he mush have a description of his background, an analysis of his famous work, Invisible Man, and a description of his impact as an American author. Ralph Waldo Ellison was born on March 1, 1914 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His father named Ralph after the nineteenth century philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson and hoped his son would be a poet. Ralph is the older of two sons of his father, Lewis Ellison, and mother, Ida Ellison. Lewis Ellison ran a small ice and coal business. Lewis Ellison died in 1917 when Ralph was three years old, leaving the family quite poor. So Ralph's mother, Ida, raised Ralph and his brother, Herbert, on her own. Ida worked as a housekeeper and a stewardess
Ellison was rejected by the United States Navy in 1943 and then joined the Merchant Marines, where he worked as a cook until the end of World War II, in 1945. While serving in the military Ellison published a number of short stories which include: "King of the Bingo Game" and "Flying Home." Ellison published his most famous work, Invisible Man, in 1952. The book was awarded National Book Award in 1953. In 1958 Ellison began a three-year stint as an instructor in Russian and American Literature at Bard College, in New York. After the publication of Invisible Man Ellison's readers awaited a second novel. Then in 1964 Ellison published Shadow and Act, a three part collection of essays and interviews on literature, music, race, relations, life in the United States, and on Ellison himself. This collection of works established Ellison as an intelligent cultural critic. Then in 1986 Ellison published his second collection of essays entitled Going to the Territory. Ellison died on April 16, 1994 of pancreatic cancer. At the end of his high school years, Ralph Ellison won a scholarship from the state of Oklahoma and decided to study music at Tuskegee Institute, in Tuskegee, Alabama. Before going to Alabama Ellison bought a
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Approximate Word count = 831
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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