1. The Ellison scholarship that considers gender through a sexualized lens diverges from sustained analyses of Mary Rambo's impact on Invisible Man's journey. And although Kim's analysis still considers gender insofar as it is connected with sexuality, his essay does little to advance Mary's cause. Singer 2003 offers another queer reading ofInvisible Man. Like Kim's essay, Singer's represents how sexuality is a consideration in issues related to gender, even though he marginalizes race in his assessment of the same.
2. Ferguson2003offers another queer reading ofInvisible Man.
3. When Ellison cut the section dedicated to Mary's boardinghouse, he cut Leroy as a consequence: a dead merchant marine whose journal in the drafts serves as a guidebook for Invisible Man as he negotiates life above ground. Even though Morrison uses the termancestorto denote both spiritual and physical energies at the same time, perNeimark1993, I understand elders and ancestors to be living and deceased sources of guidance, respectively.
4. SeeEphesians6:12, King James Version, Cambridge Edition.
5. My observation connects the experiences of Ellison and Invisible Man but does not intend to claim that the novel is autobiographical. Ellison attests to as much in his opening statement to the interview“The Art of Fiction”: “Let me say right now that my book [Invisible Man] is not an autobiographical work” (Ellison1955/1995,210).