Insight

Yet again, the brutally-truthful vet makes an appearance to center the narrator back to the reality of the world he lives in. Although he is now viewed as a man completely off his rocker- with an attendant and all- he is not physically violent or threatening to anyone. In fact, the narrator describes him as very docile stating, “the only violent thing about the vet was his tongue,”(152). Yes, this nameless vet sure has a reputation of stating the things that were usually left unsaid for a reason. After the naive narrator is boggled at the vet’s transfer, the vet challenges him to, “for God’s sake, learn to look beneath the surface,”(153). The vet has obviously learned all-too-well how to read between the lines of people and their actions. While the narrator is still mindless to the control the white men in charge really have, the vet is doing his best to wake up him as well as the rest of the world with his very out-there words.

His final piece of brilliance the vet offers to the narrator is to, “leave the Mr. Nortons alone,” (156). No, he does not mean for anyone with the name “Norton” to run away from. What he is saying here is that black people must stop chasing after the upper of the societal hierarchy. By complying to everything they demand and doing their best to please these men that are supposedly the best-of-the-best, black people are not bettering their own lives. It does not help them to try and please society. What they should be doing is living for themselves and no one else. In a way, the vet is almost encouraging the narrator to live invisibly. In the end, living invisibly is at least better than living in the shadow of the white man.