What are the themes in Invisible man chapter 1

Racial and personal identity are the themes of chapter 1. While Ellison was working on this story, he began understanding that there was a more complex underlying issue of the character's self-identity. Ellison tells of another story he wrote about another African American soldier being beat up by his fellow Americans, but then was greeted heroically by a group of Welshmen. Ellison begins hearing the voice of a narrator and dealing with the ideas of benign neglect and reverse discrimination. Meanwhile, Ellison is aware that despite these ideas, African Americans are really being kept in check and balance. Ellison describes whites as having a moral blindness to this situation, and therefore this leads to the concept of a character that is invisible. Ellison is aware that there needs to be an element of laughter in the narrator in order for there to be perseverance.