Invisible desires: Homoerotic racism and its homophobic critique in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

All the white male characters are presented, in other words, as variations on a theme, but none of them emerges from the novel as the definitive articulation of that theme. In a moment of reflection upon the similarity of the white men he has known, however, the narrator does imagine the possibility of a figure that could symbolize all of them:

And now I looked around a corner of my mind and saw Jack and Norton and Emerson merge into one single white figure. They were very much the same, each attempting to force his picture of reality upon me and neither giving a hoot in hell for how things looked to me. I was simply a material, a natural resource to be used. I had switched from the arrogant absurdity of Norton and Emerson to that of Jack and the Brotherhood, and it all came out the same.... (497, emphasis added)

It is worth noting that while no such character is found in the final version of the novel, one does appear in an earlier version of the eleventh chapter. This white man-invisible in the published work-combines features of every other white male character. He is presented, in other words, as a kind of composite sketch. Moreover, not only is this "single white figure" depicted as homosexual, but his "impure" interest in the invisible man-which mixes together a sadistic racism and a homosexual desire-is also presented as paradigmatic of the interest that the other white men take in black men. The latent homophobic symbolism detectable in the final version of Invisible Man manifests itself, then, in a more cohesive and thus more disturbing form in Ellison's earlier conception.

V. A "Single White Figure"

In 1963, Ellison published a piece that he identifies as the novel's original eleventh chapter under the title, "Out of the Hospital and Under the Bar." In this text, Mary Rambo, who is a relatively minor character in the published novel, plays a much more significant role. She is working as a janitor in the factory hospital where the narrator has regained consciousness to find himself confined in an odd womb-like machine. The narrator has no memory of who he is or of how he got there. Mary discovers the invisible man in his state of incarceration and wishes to help free him. But she is put off and insulted by what she believes to be the narrator's lack of trust in her; she thinks his amnesia is only an act. Only when, with her prodding, he improvises a tale that explains his predicament, does Mary come to believe him. What concerns us here is the story he tells. The reason for his incarceration, as he explains it, is that he struck and possibly killed a white man who tried to assault him sexually.

This story, while it has a fictive status within the diegetic world of the novel, takes on a certain allegorical force in relation to the exchanges with white male characters that have been recounted earlier. In the midst of spinning this tale, the narrator finds himself "suddenly gripped by a feeling that I was relating an actual happening, something that had occurred sometime, somewhere, in my past" (254; my emphasis). This sense that the story is partially a reenactment of previous events is further suggested by the narrator's description of the white man who propositions him. This figure combines key features of the other white male characters who have appeared already in the novel. Even within his state of amnesia, the narrator seems to remember (if only unconsciously) certain details from each of his encounters with white men and draws upon them as he creates this character. He places this encounter in what would seem to be a Southern setting, and thus this invented character's regional identity connects him with the townsmen who orchestrate the battle royal.12 This invented character's homosexuality suggests that he is also partially derived from Young Emerson. The detail that connects him to Norton, moreover, connects him to each of the other white male characters. This white man tries to coerce the narrator into succumbing to his sexual advances by demanding: "Now nigger, I want you to stand still while I put this twenty-dollar bill in your pocket" (255). Every white man the narrator has thus far met made seemingly altruistic overtures through an offer of money.