Moving along chronologically, analysis of the Prologue and the Epilogue based on Jacques Lacan s theories follows that based on Jung s. Working from parts of The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis, the concepts of gaze, visibility, and sight will be examined first. On page three of Invisible Man, the invisible man tells the reader:
I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination indeed, everything and anything except me That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact.(32)
Amidst the paranoia of the invisible man, this passage indicates that being seen determines existence for the invisible man. Furthermore, his interpretation of what others think, reflects the way he thinks. In his studies, Lacan looked at a work by Maurice Merleau-Ponty called Le visible et l invisible, The visible and the invisible. Since the concern of the invisible man is his invisibility, it seems that Lacan s interpretations of Merleau-Ponty will be useful. To begin, Lacan s interpretation of Merleau-Ponty s “eye” will be examined:
You will see that the ways through which [Merleau-Ponty] will lead you are not only of the order of visual phenomenology, since they set out to rediscover this is the essential point the dependence of the visible on that which places us under the eye of the seer. But this is going too far, for that eye is only the metaphor of something that I would prefer to call the seer s shoot something prior to his eye. What we have to circumscribe, by means of the path he indicates for us, is the pre-existence of a gaze I see only from one point, but in my existence I am looked at from all sides.(33)
First, the part of the invisible man s statement where he accuses society of “a peculiar disposition of the eyes” will be examined. According to Lacan, the eye metaphorically represents “something prior to his eye.” What exactly does this mean? The seer s eye relates to the thoughts of the seen. The pre-existence of the gaze is also important here. If the individual is looked at from all sides and sees from only one point, it is unlikely that the eyes of the seers are all at fault. According to Lacan, he is “looked at from all sides” by “something prior to his eye.” The invisible man thinks that he cannot be seen; however, he, like Lacan, is looked at from all sides. Thus his invisibility is created by his own thoughts which are situated prior to the seer s eye.
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:
Everything emerges from the structure of the signifier The relation of the subject to the Other is entirely produced in a process of gap. Without this, anything could be there. The relations between things in the real, including all of you animated beings out there, might be produced in terms of inversely reciprocal relations.(36)
The language of Lacan s theory is a little dense, but, by breaking it down, it can be used to understand why the invisible man creates his own signifiers. Key to the above quote is the idea that real relationships might come from oppositely interchangeable relations. That is, the signified necessarily is related to that which assigns its signifier, and when this relationship exists in reality, the signifier and signified become interchangeable. However, the invisible man sheds all societal signifiers for him while he speaks in the Prologue and the Epilogue. He assigns his own signifiers of Invisible Man and Jack-the-Bear, and because of this, based on Lacan, he establishes a relationship with only himself.
Continuing with the last quoted passages of Invisible Man, another theory of Lacan can be applied. A psychosis of which Lacan talks is aphanisis:
Now, aphanisis, is to be situated in a more radical way at the level at which the subject manifests himself in this movement of disappearance that I have described as lethal. In a quite different way, I have called this movement the fading of the subject.(37)
The invisible man declared himself to be in this state of imperceptibility. Lacan describes his subject as one who “manifests himself” in a lethal disappearance. Thus, the invisible man, through self-signification, disappears. He is guilty of his own “fading of the subject.”
Finally, one more passage from the Prologue and the Epilogue of Invisible Man will be examined. The Lacanian analysis, in conclusion, will be used to understand part of the lesson that the invisible man tries to teach his readers:
I sell you no phony forgiveness. I m a desperate man but too much of your life will be lost, its meaning lost, unless you approach it as much through love as through hate.(38)
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:
Let us illustrate this with what we are dealing with here, namely, the being of the subject, that which is there beneath the meaning. If we choose being, the subject disappears, it eludes us, it falls into non-meaning. If we choose meaning, the meaning survives only deprived of that part of non-meaning that is, strictly speaking, that which constitutes in the realization of the subject, the unconscious. In other words, it is of the nature of this meaning, as it emerges in the field of the Other, to be in a large part of its field, eclipsed by the disappearance of being, induced by the very function of the signifier.(39)
Part of what Lacan says, relates to the underground life of the invisible man. The invisible man admits that he is becoming a new person, as was talked about in relation to Jungian rebirth, and in the passage that is now being examined, it seems that one thing new about the invisible man is his choice of meaning. He says to his readers, “too much of your life will be lost, its meaning lost.” Part of what will help him to resurface, or to reappear to counter the Lacanian “disappearance,” is his new choice of meaning.
Continuing, the process of approaching life through both love and hate relates to the debate between being and meaning that Lacan addresses. The information that meaning emerges in the Other can be drawn from Lacan. Through that, it can be seen that the invisible man identifies life as a process that needs to be related to the Other. Love and hate are emotions that humans direct toward each other, thus, the meaning that the invisible man seeks and tells the reader to seek, comes from the direction of two emotions toward the Other. Also, the Lacanian signifier appears again in this passage. The invisible man signified himself as invisible when he felt hate from and for society. His realization that life must be pursued through love and hate puts his being in touch with meaning. That is, he reduces the use of the signifier Invisible Man, and in turn finds more meaning. As Lacan says, his meaning is “induced by the very function of the signifier.”
Having a literary representation of psychoanalytic theory makes both the literature of Invisible Man and the theories of Freud, Jung, and Lacan more accessible. However, simply relating the theories to passages in the text does not seem to do either justice. Thus, an interpretive analysis of the relationships will be given at this time. If Freud were to meet the invisible man as a patient, he would be much more interested in the workings of his life leading up to the Prologue and the Epilogue. The information within the text about the grandfather, the grandfather s expectations, the women, the sexual and near sexual encounters with women, and the role of mother figures like Mary and father figures like Bledsoe would shape Freud s opinions on the overall mental health of the invisible man. However, the psychoanalysis in this paper tries to maintain a focus on the current invisible man, despite the events that led to his current state. Because of that, it seems safe to say that the invisible man has moved beyond his instincts; he has curbed his aggressive drives and now strives to work with society. He is no longer one of civilizations discontents.
Even though Jung overthrew Freud in the psychoanalytic world in an dipal struggle, his views on psychoanalysis took him away from exploring the infantile sexual drive that brought Freud so much fame. Because of this, it seems that Jung would enjoy studying the invisible man for only the events which occur or are of importance to him in the Prologue and the Epilogue, in his current mental life. The invisible man s admittance that he lives in a cave would greatly interest Jung because of the story of the cave in the Koran. Jung would believe that the invisible man had, in the past, some psychological troubles relating to his sheep-like follower s mentality; however, the archetype of Rebirth is now at work in his mind. Despite the fact that sense perception will not allow members of society to see the reborn invisible man, Jung the psychoanalyst will be able to see it and will agree with the invisible man s self-diagnosis of page 581: “Perhaps that s my greatest social crime, I ve overstayed my hibernation.”(40) Necessarily, it must be concluded that the invisible man will re-emerge from his cave and that, when he does re-emerge, the Rebirth archetype will no longer be functioning in him, no longer affecting his relationship with society.
Lacan, fundamentally, used other people s theories to his own ends. Through Maurice Merleau-Ponty, he examined the role of the gaze and of the eye. Thus, his philosophical interest in Merleau-Ponty would be inclined to take the invisible man of the Prologue and the Epilogue as a companion. Like Jung, Lacan would not care so much about the events leading up to the man s invisibility. Lacan s interest would be in the language used by the invisible man to describe his malady. That the invisible man would describe his invisibility as ” a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact,”(41) would lead Lacan to recall his lecture on Merleau-Ponty. Lacan would be inclined to identify the invisible man as a self-alienator, or a hermit, because of his inability to deal with the gaze of others. In the end, the invisible man seems to begin to understand the role of the signifier and his problems with self-signification, but, while Freud and Jung dismissed him with a clean bill of health, he would not be so lucky with Lacan. Lacan may not have practiced psychoanalysis as a medicine, but, had he consulted the invisible man, he probably would not have accepted the invisible man s self-belief that he was ready for society. Lacan would see that, in the invisible man, some fundamentals of psychoanalysis relating to perception and alienation would still haunt this wraith-like man out of his cave.
Some would conclude that this particular research reaches its end when Invisible Man ends. However, a very odd cultural phenomenon has begun in which supposedly real people are afflicted with Ellison s fictional malady of invisibility. In this technological world, anyone can publish anything on the World Wide Web. Because of the open access to the Web, references to it must be couched in concern. Nothing about web pages indicates their validity. Creative web pages could be made to look like legitimate research, and vice versa. However, if a statement makes it to the Web, then it becomes a part of human culture; it becomes indicative of the thoughts and problems of at least part of society. Bearing this in mind, a pursuit of “true” human invisibility will be examined. According to the web page for The Monte Vista School for Invisible Boys, invisibility is a disease that affects .02% of all children. These children suffer from a translucence of the pigmentation in their skin and are not cared for. This school aims to aid invisible children.(42) In another area of humanity, adults are becoming invisible. A woman stands in line in the post office for hours with people continually pushing in front of her, and when she finally reaches the window, the clerk looks about, and seeing no one, closes for the day. Certified hypno-therapist (possibly a pseudo-scientist, possibly a doctor strictly a judgement call) Donna Higbee wrote a web paper entitled “Human Spontaneous Involuntary Invisibility” in which she related the above story and others. She cited history too: “Human invisibility has been written about for centuries.”(43) So, through carefully and doubtfully assuming the validity of these two web pages, one can see how a detailed psychoanalysis of Invisible Man can help others. Because fictional characters “are both more and less than real persons,”(44) according to The Critical Tradition, a psychoanalysis of them can serve as an example for psychoanalysis of real persons. Society contains people who believe in invisibility as a disease. Whether they can be trusted, because of publishing on the Web, or not, becomes irrelevant. That they did publish becomes key. If these people who truly believe in invisibility could see the psychoanalytic reasons for invisibility through an easily accessible novel, they might find the cure they ve been looking for.
This study, through the analysis of the modern American masterpiece Invisible Man, brings to life psychoanalysts of three generations: Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, and Jacques Lacan. Though their theories are dense and sometimes difficult, relating them to an easily accessible novel turns them into easily accessible theories. The aim of this paper was to fill a void where psychoanalytic criticism of Invisible Man was lacking. The result has been the bringing together of psychoanalysis and literature in a way that makes each more enjoyable and alive. With people believing in invisibility now, this paper has a wider audience to reach than just members of academia; it may be able to aid the friends of the Web who care for those who suffer from invisibility. Take to mind that psychoanalysis can shed new light on any dark cave of the mind.