In the following essay, Adell examines Invisible Man according to the theory of intertextuality expressed by Roland Barthes, noting the connections between Ellison's novel and such works as T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground.

In the following essay, O'Meally examines folklore allusions and interpretations both in the fiction of Ralph Ellison—most notably his one novel, Invisible Man—and in his nonfiction, including the essays in Shadow and Act.

In the following essay, Deutsch examines Ellison 's early short stories in relation to Invisible Man to show that his primary fictional themes remained constant throughout the course of his career.

In the following essay, Walsh delineates the relationship between Invisible Man and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land.

For his novel of the American scene, Ralph Ellison uses American authors to support major ideas, ideas controlled by the dominant image of vision inherent in the title of Invisible Man and fully exploited in the fiction. References to American authors are sophisticated jokes, often very funny. As aware as Mark Twain that humor is a weapon, and as aware as T. S. Eliot that juxtaposition of allusions contributes to a total effect, Ellison plays with names of American authors and teases with allusions to Ameri...

In the following essay, which originally appeared in The New York Times, March 1, 1982, Mitgang uses the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of Invisible Man to reflect on Ellison's life and career.

In the following essay, Guereschi reveals stylistic and thematic parallels between "King of the Bingo Game" and Invisible Man.

Ellison's Invisible Man presents the theme of the individual activist quest for spiritual freedom in a [pure,] abstract form…. Ellison's narrative does not compromise with its theme: there are no resolutions in love. The invisible man, the Southern Negro narrator, elects to call himself only "invisible man." This anonymous Negro thrusts again and again, in a series of episodes, parallel and repetitive more than sequential and developing, against the walls of his environmen...