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Some of Ellison's influences had a more direct impact on his novel as when Ellison divulges this, in his introduction to the 30th anniversary of "Invisible Man", that the "character" ("in the dual sense of the word") who had announced himself on his page he "associated, ever so distantly, with the narrator of Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground". Although, despite the "distantly" remark, it appears that Ellison used that novella more than just on that occasion. The beginning of "Invisible Man", for example, seems to be structured very similar to "Notes from Underground": "I am a sick man" compared to "I am an invisible man".