In Invisible Man there are recurring images of waves and rhythms, creating a reality in which everything has its own frequency and wavelength. This concept functions as an underlying theme, which when examined turns out to play into the idea of ​​the narrator's invisibility and help compose the overall metaphysical structure of the novel. This notion of frequencies appears many times in both visual and auditory contexts, ultimately revealing the nature of the narrator's invisibility: living on a different wavelength. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The narrator begins simply, “I am an invisible man.” (Ellison 3) Immediately this statement sparks thoughts in the reader's mind about what this invisibility means: “I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they come close to me they see… everything and anything except me.”(Ellison 3) Mirrors create images, which are exclusively visual. The simplicity of the sentence structure contributes to its mysterious nature and although in the next few lines the narrator provides an abstract explanation of what his invisibility is, the reader never reaches a literal explanation simply because the narrator's invisibility is not literal. The narrator goes on to provide a more detailed description: “[I'm] not one of your Hollywood movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquid - and you might even say that I possess a mind." (Ellison 3) The ironic tone of this passage, shown by its sarcastic and satirical statements, conveys a sardonic awareness of his situation.There are many optical images in the novel, which makes sense when you consider how central the idea of ​​invisibility is obviously race and civil rights, and it can be argued that Man invisible serves as a symbol of black struggle in an oppressive society says Richard Kostelanetz: "Ralph Ellison defines the purpose of novel writing as 'to convert experience into symbolic action,' and this phrase incidentally captures the particular outcome of his novel, Invisible Man, in which he creates an unnamed narrator… [who] represent in symbolic form the overall historical experience of the most politically active element of the American Negro people.” (Kostelanetz 5) The novel ties together these two themes of race and optics, for example: “If it's optical white, it's the right white.” (Ellison 168) Not only does the word optician appear, but this phrase is strongly reminiscent of the racist phrase “white is right.” The notion of race is largely an optical idea (the whole idea of ​​skin color) and is completely socially constructed. Here the importance of color is emphasized and, by connecting it to the metaphysics proposed by the novel, one can connect these ideas of race and color by considering that color is simply the reflection of different wavelengths of light, and therefore the idea of ​​frequencies once again plays a crucial role in the composition of the novel and the concepts it creates. In addition to the prevailing optical images, there is also an acoustic theme. The last line of the novel, “Who knows but that, on the lowest frequencies, I speak for you?” both connect and create a contradiction with the first line. The idea of ​​invisibility is a purely visual phenomenon, however, the idea of ​​speaking on a “lower frequency” (Ellison 450) produces an auditory impression, which suggests that invisibility is more than simply visual. Creating the themes of both optical and optical invisibility suggests that invisibility is not exclusively invisible, but also unheard. The idea and language of acoustics, including themusic, extend throughout the novel to provide insights into the metaphysics of invisibility and time. The narrator uses the ideas of rhythm and waves as an active way to describe the world he is experiencing. “The pace uptown was slower and yet somehow faster; a different tension was in the warm night air.” (Ellison 328) The idea of ​​a place having a rhythm, or even a frequency with which it vibrates, is evident here. The idea of ​​it having a faster pace (higher frequency) or a slower pace (lower frequency) creates a dichotomy between fast and slow rhythms. Furthermore, there is a musical language other than rhythm that is used to reinforce the underlying sense of musical time. “Tension” despite having different meanings in different contexts, in this case has a musical sense, considering its association with rhythm. Tension is a fundamental idea in Jazz, a musical style that is also a theme of the novel. Often tension is created by dissonances or chords that are just waiting to be resolved, however, in this case there is a dichotomy between the fast and slow pulses of uptown. Wilfried Raussert, in “Jazz, Time, and Narrativity,” discusses this very idea in a different context: “the brief interruption of flow is reminiscent of the pauses in jazz through which rhythmic tension is achieved.” (Raussert 532) However, instead of a disruption of flow, Ellison uses the simultaneity of rhythms to create this tension. Like optical imagery, optical imagery also brings out the fundamental theme of race, as jazz was born out of black culture. These ideas of rhythm, pulse, and music contribute to the metaphysics of the novel to ultimately explain the narrator's invisibility. The concept of waves is also firmly rooted in the novel's sense of time, which is a fundamental part of the metaphysical identity of anything. As was shown above, the idea of ​​rhythm and waves is ingrained as part of the feeling of a place. To further solidify this concept, these ideas are also present in the perception of time. “Great invisible waves of time flowed over me, but that morning never came.” (Ellison 440) The word “waves” connotes rhythm, beat, and pulsation. Large suggests large amplitude, which in turn creates the image of a slow, steady pulse that evokes the notion of wavelengths. The slow, steady pulses convey a sense of hypnotism, which contributes to the idea of ​​perpetually waiting for something, in this case, the morning. The introduction of this conception of pulse in time further suggests a connection to rhythms and continues to suggest a world described by frequencies. “Invisibility, let me explain, gives a slightly different sense of time, you're never quite in step. Sometimes you're ahead and sometimes you're behind. Instead of the rapid and imperceptible passage of time, you are aware of its nodes, those points where time stops or from which it leaps forward. And you slip into pauses and look around. This is what you vaguely hear in Louis' music. (Ellison 7) This quote contains a lot of substance. Here the narrator not only breaks the fourth wall as he does at the beginning and in the epilogue, but also attempts to communicate the concept of his invisibility. It uses the abstraction of having a different sense of time, which has musical connotations. It again introduces the idea of ​​being out of touch, suggesting that the world has a rhythm and that it does not have the same time signature as the rest of the world. This idea, linked to the pre-established concept of frequencies, creates the idea that he operates on a different wavelength than the rest of the world. Just as a radio and a receiver operate on two different frequencies, neither existing relative to the other, so is the narrator's relationship with the world: creating his invisibility..