How to reconcile personal freedom with the need to respect the interests of society? Should we celebrate individuality or its sacrifice? Or rather, should the individual be subjected to the masses, or should the masses be subjected to the individual? (Allen 144). Myriad writers have attempted to answer these questions to different ends. In A Clockwork Orange and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Burgess and Kesey reach similar conclusions by employing mad characters to discuss the negative influences society has on the individual; in both stories, the characters must endure mind-altering treatments from morally ambiguous scientists to better "fit" into society. Both authors romanticize misfits who remain untainted by their corrupt peers. Ralph Ellison echoes these sentiments in The Invisible Man, in which he advocates individual freedom and personal responsibility instead of submission to authority. His perspective is best illustrated through an analysis of existentialist philosophy as he relates absurdism in his novel. The narrator of The Invisible Man grapples with finding his place in society until he learns to accept the inherent absurdities of life and learns to embrace the freedom that accompanies that realization. Ellison argues that, in light of life's innate absurdity and aimlessness, people must strive for individuality. Just before hearing Reverend Barbee's sermon, the narrator observes, "And I also remember how we faced those others, the ones who had put me there in this Eden... who brought their words back to us through blood, violence, ridicule and condescension with shuffling smiles, and who exhorted and threatened, intimidated with innocent words and... in the middle of a sheet... a critical study. Chicago: H. Regnery, 1952. Print. Ellison, Ralph 'invisible man. London: Penguin, 1965. Print. "Existentialism {Index to Philosophy}. "Index to Philosophy." . Network. 15 September 2011. .Frost, S. E. Basic teachings of the great philosophers: an investigation of their basic ideas. New York: Anchor, 1989. Print. Russell, Bertrand Western philosophy in its social and political context. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959. Print.Wilcox, Eliot John. “The Absurd in the Briar Patch: The Invisible Man and Ellison's Existentialism.” April 2010. Web. 18 September. 2011. .