"She seemd like a fair bird-girl girdled in veils calling to me from the angry surface of some gray
and threatening ea. I was transported. Then I became aware of the clarinet
playing and the big shots yelign at us....He tried to hid himself with boxing
gloves"
When reading the prologue
of this book, the one thought that sparked my mind was emphasis of
"blind." The invisible man, thus far, nameless, seems to suffer
from this disease of blindness- being a black man. The invisible man is not
blind to his environment, rather vise-versa. It is sad to hear that during this
time period, full of Armstrong Jazz and blues, was the racist side- undermining
the African Americans and framing them as "bad." The one incident the
invisible man faced when the white man accused of "muggling" annoyed
me. Perhaps it was because of the ignorance the man faced, more so society at
that time period. It's weird how this "invisible man" does everything
secretly and unknowingly- hence the title, the invisible man....first of all,
he lives under, in a basement and steals power from a company. Now this is a
bit ironic. Why? Well first of all, these white tenants refuse to go anywhere
close to the basement, showing how egoistic and status-obsessed they are.
Nonetheless, they are technically blind to all that is going around, especially
with people unlike their kind. Another interesting aspect that I noted was the
importance of time and illusion- he mentions that whenever he is high, under
the influence of marijuana he loses a sense of time, but I feel it was more
than just this. With such intoxication, one no longer is part of this egoistic,
self-centered world, he is part of his own world- one that is invisible to
everyone. It is ironic how to society he is invisible, yet he impacts their
life to a certain extent. Take for example the tapping of power- the whole town
is searching for the man behind such crime, yet they can't find him. He is
almost like a ghost- a spirit who does actions, without anyone finding out.
-Now moving on to
chapter 1, which i find rather disturbing and cruel. I question the
beginning of the chapter- why is a white girl (who is suppose to have a higher
rank than a black man) exposed in the center of these men? What is the
significance of this? Another point to consider is, why do they me young
experience this horrendous defeat for money...that is fake? It seems that
through this chapter, and including the prologue, a motif of power is seen.
Firstly, power is what he steals from the white men, yet when in the rink, he
is hurt from this electrical power that is running through the coins that the
young men fight for. Another symbol that is noticed is the illusion of dreams.
In the prologue, the narrator states that he uses drugs to feel a sense of
relief and when he is dreaming in chapter 1, he dreams of his grandfather
giving him something to laugh about. These illusions are what keeps him going,
keeps him calm, and perhaps sane.
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