“Who am I?” (Ellison 242) is a question not many people can answer. As it does with most people, this question confuses the unidentified narrator in Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man. Ellison uses the idea of perception, culture, and location to show the reader how important identity is. In the novel, the narrator recounts all of his chaotic experiences and tries to make sense of his lack of identity, however he has a hard time understanding it because identity is a constant battle between self perception and the perception of others. The invisible man has a hard time identifying himself because he realizes that people are capable of seeing him, but they choose not to. In the prologue, he says “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me” (Ellison 1) A large part of a person’s identity is often shaped by others’ perceptions, and without the perception of others, the narrator feels lost. Invisible man is obedient to the way society thinks he should be because he feels like a minority due to his race, however when he says “I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions that only I could answer,” (Ellison 15) he discovers an invisible identity. After coming to the realization that only he can determine who he really is, Invisible Man realizes that the only way a person can truly identify themselves is if they care more about their perceptions of themselves more than they care about the perception of others. Another reason why Invisible Man finds it hard to identify himself is because he is aware of how easily someone’s identity can change. When Invisible Man puts on a disguise and is mistaken multiple times for a man named Rhinehart, he asks himself “If dark glasses and a white hat could blot out my identity so quickly, who actually was who?” (Ellison 493). This opens Invisible Man’s door to the understanding that identity is very complex because Rhinehart took on multiple personas, and it opens Invisible Man’s eyes to the fact that people can easily be fooled into believing someone is completely different than who they really are. After coming to this realization, Invisible Man starts to question who he really is and realizes that he has been manipulated into becoming who other people thought he was instead of who he wants to be. Before, he takes on the identity that society has given him because that is the easy thing to do. Once he opens his eyes to the truth, Invisibl