Burning, Rebirth, The End - Invisible Man

At the end of chapter 25 of Invisible Man, we find the narrator trapped in a coal cellar with only his briefcase to keep him company. During this time, the narrator starts to burn the items in the briefcase to create light in the darkness beneath the manhole cover. Throughout this novel, Ellison has used the items in this briefcase as a symbol of the ongoing manipulative environment that surrounds the narrator. Only at the bottom of the cellar, in the absence of everything and everyone, does he seem to be truly free from manipulation. In this environment, he can have some clarity of mind and time to reflect. By burning these items, the narrator is metaphorically freeing himself of the strings that have been controlling his life for so long. By liberating himself and placing himself in an isolated situation, he creates the ideal environment for a rebirth, much like the rebirth in the hospital chapter where he was seemingly erased, emerging from this birth as a blank slate. In the same way that he is reborn as an unmolded persona in chapter 11, this burning allows for him to undergo another rebirth. In this way, he breaks away from his past by burning these items. By burning the Brotherhood paper from his briefcase, he specifically breaks ties with this institution, one that has deceived him and manipulated him to work against the black community of America. 

Ironically, this briefcase was introduced by the white superintendent where he stated that this briefcase would eventually "help shape the destiny of your people" (Ellison 32). In fact, this briefcase is more a symbol of how white people shaped the narrator's life than how the narrator was meant to shape other people's lives. This briefcase and its beginnings just goes to show how the narrator was being manipulated his entire life and even worse, he didn't seem to know much about it. There's some irony here as well. As obsessed as he was with the idea of invisibility and people being blind to him, he was the one that was blind to this manipulation, completely oblivious to the fact that people have been using him for their own purposes all along. This blindness that he has throughout the book relates back to his cyclical nature and the idea of history repeating itself. This cyclical nature also resonates with the fact that he started this novel in isolation and ended it in isolation. Due to this cyclical nature, he needs a rebirth to reinvent himself and to attempt to break away from this loop that he seems to be stuck in. This rebirth is explicitly stated in the epilogue: "The hibernation is over, I must shake off the old skin and come up for breath" (Ellison 580). By "shaking off his old skin," he's cutting off the past (partially symbolized by burning of items in the briefcase) and finally coming up into a new world.

This rebirth ultimately alters his worldview, forcing him to explore his own identity and.reminding himself of his obligations to society. He even reflects on his invisibility, stating that he'll be "no less invisible without" his old skin, so to speak (Ellison 581). This hints at the fact that his invisibility has nothing to do with his past experiences, but rather stems from people's stereotyping nature and their unwillingness to acknowledge the narrator. He ends the novel with this question: "Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?" (Ellison 581). By the term "lower frequencies," he may be referring to his invisibility and maybe even the invisibility of others and how they operate on "lower frequencies." This invisibility gives them a hidden power. By staying away from the public eye, they have a greater ability to improve themselves as well as the society they operate in. The narrator extends the idea of invisibility to everyone else and acknowledges his duty to society and to all people that may be oppressed or discriminated against.