Changing Mindset

            The prologue depicts a narrator irritated by his metaphorical invisibility; he longs to be noticed and treated with the respect he deserves as a human being. After his violent encounter with a white man on the street, he says "the man had not seen me" (4). He discusses the extirpation of his old life, which was rooted in the "fallacious assumption" (5) of his visibility. It is apparent that Invisible Man has been deeply affected by societal prejudices against him.

            The first chapter delineates a man who longed to attain recognition—a man who did not yet deem himself invisible. He says he "was naïve" (15) to ask others to define his identity. When he fought in the "battle royal" (17), the protagonist constantly thought about how much he wanted to deliver his speech to the group because "[he] felt that only [those] white men could judge [his] true ability" (25). He was too blinded by his scholarship and recognition to be aware of the terror the men had caused with the fighting and electrocution. He proves his naivety because he was blind to the evil the whites exuded.

            Invisible Man seeks to gain insight from others as to what his identity should be in the beginning, valuing the white men's opinions. In the prologue, the protagonist has been battered by society and is ashamed of his previous valuing of white men's opinions. He shows a change in mindset between the two sections, demonstrating the severity of discrimination, which alters the narrator's perception of his own identity.