The Big Picture?

“All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself.”
--Ralph Ellison,
From Invisible Man

Question: What connections can you suggest that link Franklin's Autobiography and Ellison's aforementioned quotation? How might Ellison's quotation suggest "Big Picture" ideas that correlate with American Literature? (If needed, use the best portions of your first quickwrite.)