In most of the novel, the narrator of Invisible Man has not actually experienced what he calls “invisibility” in the prologue. He continues to develop towards it, meeting people that betray him and becoming more defensive. In the prologue, the narrator describes his invisibility as never being quite on the beat. When the narrator discovers invisibility, he not only discovers that he can use a disguise and not be himself, but he can be secluded; he can live in a disguise and start to notice more things without worrying about the relationships he already has. The narrator’s first experience with being invisible to people that would normally recognize him is in Chapter 23, when he must put on a disguise so that Ras’ men don’t recognize him. He then starts to run into a bunch of people who mistake him for a man named Rinehart, who presumably leads many different lives with different people. The narrator realizes that he really enjoys being invisible because he is the only one who knows who he is. This is a big step and the narrator is almost at the mindset of the “prologue narrator”, there is just one more event that changes him. In the last chapter, the rebellion in Harlem gets out of control and the narrator ends up getting sucked into it and falls into a manhole. In the manhole, he decides to burn everything in his briefcase because it is all he has to get light. This is a very significant action, because up to this point in the book, the narrator has kept all of the significant items that he has come across in that briefcase. At this point, he is completely detached from his life. He says,
No, I couldn’t return to Mary’s, or to the campus, or to the Brotherhood, or home. I could only move ahead or stay here, underground. So I would stay here until I was chased out. Here, at least, I could try to think things out in peace, or, if not in peace, in quiet. I would take up residence underground. The end was in the beginning. (Ellison 571)
These are the last words in the book before it goes back to the narrator in the room with the lights. By now, he has completely realized that he wants to live an “invisible life.” He says in the quote above, “the end was in the beginning,” meaning that his new life starts here.
I wrote my paper on this. It was quite interesting. I feel the narrator explores 2 different kinds of invisibility in Chapter 23. The invisibility of disguise like rinehart and his invisibility to powerful men. Do you agree?
ReplyDeleteI think that the invisibility that the narrator talks about has different parts, too. There's the invisibility of not being noticed, period, which is what the narrator uses when he stays in the basement. The other kind, where personas are projected onto the narrator, is what the narrator uses to become Rinehart to escape the police.
ReplyDeleteIsn't the narrator technically invisible in the prologue? As Raya said the narrator isolates himself from society so he is invisible to everyone in that way. But I agree; the very first time we as readers see him as the invisible of being hidden while being out in society is when he is dressed as Rinehart. I do, although, think there are other ideas of being invisible and in a way I think you can relate invisibility to any part of the book.
ReplyDeleteThere's some ambiguity here, whether he's "choosing" this underground life or just kind of (literally) falling into it. The "at least" in the passage you quote has him making the best of the situation, seeing few alternatives, and he's not even sure he'll find "peace" underground, just quiet (the idea being that examining his life and experience won't be "peaceful," and given the stuff he's got to think and write about, we know what he means!). He's at a point where returning "above-ground" will require some conscious effort or choice, and he's not certain he wants to make that effort.
ReplyDeleteI think it is also important to recognize the change that comes over the narrator from the prologue to the epilogue--in my opinion they are two distinct versions of the narrator because through revisiting his own story he has become a different character; the epilogue narrator. Chronologically, I believe his character changes from college boy, to Brotherhood member, to prologue narrator, to epilogue narrator once he has written his story, and keeping this in mind I think can provide a lot of further insight to evaluating the narrator as a whole.
ReplyDelete