Abstract

Despite Ellison's repeated claims, post-Invisible Man, that he had never been close to the Communist Party, his journalistic writings from the period 1938–1944 — primarily contributions to the Federal Writers Project and the New Masses — indicate a high degree of concurrence with CP approaches to a range of cultural and political issues. Of particular interest are his writings on war and fascism, which reflect agreement with the Communists' shifting positions — from Popular Front to "The Yanks Are Not Coming" to "Win the War." Although the Brotherhood's presumed betrayal of Harlem to the exigencies of international politics precipitates the invisible man's flight underground, the record of Ellison's own writings suggests that the portrayal of the left in the second half of Invisible Man bears little correspondence to the author's own experiences and attitudes during the Depression and wartime years.