Blog Post 1

 Early on in the novel, the narrator describes how he feels in the society around him. He feels as if he is an “Invisible Man”. The narrator talks about his grandparents who were freed slaves after the Civil War.  The grandfather tells the narrator’s to keep two identities. The first being the over obedient side, and the second being, the resentment they have towards their master. The purpose of the two identities is to use the over obedient one to gain an advantage over the white people because it is a front, and not their true identity. The narrator believes that instead of faking obedience, he should have sincere obedience to gain more respect. To a certain extent it works, until they take advantage of this by making him participate in the fighting that degrades everyone involved. The boys being blindfolded and the use of masks seem to add to the motif of blindness and not being able to see something, almost like it is invisible.

Ellison uses the narrator’s speech to debunk some of Booker T. Washington’s ideas, in which where quoted in the narrator’s speech. He shows that the successful black business man, is just as vulnerable to the degrading racist remarks and actions taken against them, as the poor, black sharecroppers. This is shown through the narrator and his speech, and the narrator’s grandfather. Washington’s rather optimistic view of white society is shown to be false by these two situations early in the novel.