I am not invisible.

I am writing this, am I not? You can read it, can you not? I exist. Don't I?

Doubt. The most dreadful feeling. Especially when it comes to doubting one's existence. But it is interesting how the nameless protagonist of the story, does not doubt his existence, rather doubts that others see him exist.

We can relate this to the historical context, the feeling of invisibility because of  color, a contradiction to the term since one assumes that being invisible is to be transparent, with no color, unseen. And that is not the case of the color black. On the contrary it is visible. I can go unnoticed, I am white as a vampire. But black people can't. Scientifically the color black is the absorption of all the colors in the spectrum, is that considered invisible? What an antithesis.

Just wanted to point that out.

 I was talking about doubt, and how the concept of invisibility goes beyond just race, or color. Ralph Ellison's phrase of "to be unaware of one's form is to live a death" (7), helped me read within the lines. In this sentence doubt comes to play.

When I read this I thought how this could be a perfect epitaph for a future paper. But obviously I was not close reading it. Everyone determines there existence by others, that is why the nameless protagonist thought he was invisible. We do too. We feel no one sees us simply because we are not asked to prom, we are not popular, we are not recognized. We underestimate who we are determining ourselves by others. That is how society works. Creating doubt on our existence. Ellison agrees with this, but what he expresses through what the protagonist said, is that our existence is our form.

But what is form? Our essence? what we think of ourselves? who we are? Wait. The protagonist says he is invisible, isn't that what he is?

He is invisible. He is aware of his invisibility, "I myself after existing some twenty years, did not become alive until I discovered by invisibility" (7). He discovered that others saw him invisible, and assumes that to be true. But he has a form. He knows of his existence, and knows it cannot be determined by the invisible spectrum people assume he is. I guess what I am trying to say is that he is seen as invisible, but his form is visible. At least to himself. If one does not know what his/her form is, one does not exist. He is invisible but he exists. If our form becomes invisible then we "live a death", the doubt of existence becomes a reality.

Form is certainty of existence.

Side note: the fact that Ellison does not give a name to the protagonist, alludes to the whole concept of invisibility. No name, seems as if it did not exist, but the words and what he says are the form, the proof of existence.