Invisible Man Presentation: Chapters 20-23

Invisible Man Presentation: Chapters 20-23 By: Holly Cobb, Dylan Steensland, and Shannon Shively Hour: 2

Overview Chapter 20: • "Sambo" Dolls • Clifton's death Chapter 21: • Clifton's Funeral Chapter 22: • Meeting with Brotherhood Chapter 23: • Battle with Ras • Rinehart • Meeting with Brother Hambro

Theme • Theme: People accept disguises instead of facing the underlying truth • Meaning: Disguises give people power and when a disguise is removed, the actual truth of the situation is revealed.

Thesis • Through the events preceding Clifton's death, the narrator's disillusionment of the brotherhood, and the narrator's discoveries of about Rinehart, Ellison suggests that people accept disguises instead of facing the underlying truth, which has riddled the narrator's life since he was a young man, but only now is the narrator starting to see the truth beneath these disguises.

Supporting Evidence: "Sambo" Doll • "It was some kind of toy and I glanced at the crowd's fascinated eyes and down again, seeing it clearly this time (Ellison 431)." • "[...] but I was held by the inanimate, boneless bouncing of the grinning doll and struggled between the desire to join in the laughter and to leap upon it with both feet (Ellison 432)." • Narrator strikes the doll (Ellison 433).

So What: "Sambo" Doll • How the crowd reacts to the doll shows that the crowd accepted the "Sambo" doll as its disguise as a toy instead of seeing that it was an epitomized stereotype. This supports the theme of purposeful ignorance by accepting the disguise of the doll and looking no deeper. • This event was crucially important to the development of the narrator and a shift in his behavior. As a young man, the narrator accepted the disguises of others. But in this event, the narrator perceives the truth and rejects accepting its disguise, unlike the crowd. This shows the narrator's development of perception and willingness act differently than the crowd.

Supporting Evidence: Brotherhood • The brotherhood's true self is revealed. "No," Brother Jack said, getting to his feet, "you'll stand on the decision of the committee..What's happened to your discipline?" "Such crowds are only our raw materials, one of the raw materials to be shaped to our program." (Ellison 472) "Our job is not to ask them what to think but to tell them." (Ellison 473) Then, Brother Jack's eye falls out, which after all had been revealed, shows Brother Jack's blindness to the people of Harlem and their actual needs

So What: Brotherhood • The narrator is no longer deceived about the motives of the Brotherhood. He had at first believed the intentions that the brotherhood presented and that others believed in, however, he has now seen their true intentions beneath their false ones. This loss of disguise is epitomized when Jack's glass eye falls out. It reveals that the Brotherhood are not men of vision but are self-serving and blind. This event is important to the narrator because he strongly believed in the ideals of the Brotherhood and, now that his belief has been shattered, he questions what's around and starts to see what's beneath the surface.

So What: Brotherhood • This also relates to the narrator's time at the college where he realized the ideals of the college that he believed in were false. This pattern of disillusionment continues to haunt the narrator with this experience with the Brotherhood.

Supporting Evidence: Rinehart • When the narrator dresses as Rinehart, he fools several people, including members of Reverend Rinehart's congregation. "Yes," I said quickly, dabbing my mouth with a handkerchief...I wanted to tell them that Rinehart was a fraud, but now there came a shout from inside the church and I heard a burst of music." "Just lissen to it, Sister Harris. That's the new kind of guitar music I told you Rever'n Rinehart got for us. (Ellison 497) Additionally, he discusses how another sister found Rinehart's sermon inspirational.

Supporting Evidence: Rinehart • The narrator seems to understand that every person has a truth and that it is spoken in another way. "It was as true as I was true...Perhaps the truth was always a lie." (Ellison 498) The narrator, through Rinehart begins to see that maybe his understanding was not what he thought it was and that Rinehart was playing the game the narrator was supposed to play.

So What: Rinehart • The people's acceptance of the Narrator's disguise as Rinehart shows how they chose to see what they wanted instead of seeing the truth. This also shows a change in the narrator. As a young man, he was always the one deceived by his the disguise but now he is the one deceiving others. This exemplifies how the narrator has been disguising himself as what others want him to be since as far back as the battle royale.

So What: Rinehart • Rinehart, and his array of multiple disguises, are an extreme example of the deception of disguise. Rinehart reveals how people, in mass, can be betrayed by a single person. Although he has encountered people who have become powerful due to their disguises in his past, this is the moment where the narrator is hit with the possibilities that the power of disguise can give a person.

Supporting Evidence: Brother Hambro • "It's a risk which we must take. All of us must sacrifice for the good of the whole. Change is achieved through sacrifice." (Ellison 502) The brotherhood worries about the pressing needs of the whole brotherhood rather than the needs of the people.

So What: Brother Hambro • As a young man, he was sacrificed by Bledsoe when he made a mistake because Bledsoe was trying to save his own skin. Likewise, he learned that the point of his speech was sacrificed for the entertainment of the white people down south. The narrator understands that the brotherhood disguised him from their goal of bettering themselves because in order to do that, they had to sacrifice the narrator and the rest of Harlem. This time, the narrator seems to understand the brotherhood did not have the good intentions he believed they had originally had. He figured out that he had also disguised himself from the reality that the brotherhood was shedding his people for the good of the brotherhood as a whole, giving him a need for revenge.

Conclusion • “Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” Jonathan Swift. • The narrators discoveries of how disguises can affect what people believe is true or not is still evident in our lives. Politicians do it all the time, making us believe something that may not be true in order for us to elect them. Ellison's words were meant to explain the social injustices of his day and he revealed them through a narrator who isn't much different than you or me. He was young, only intending to find his way, through work and education. He was marred by past events at home and in college and this was the turning point in his life, where he discovered the true intentions of what people wanted him to do. Therefore, let's pose a question, "How do people intend to use you and are they blind to the real issues of humanity and how can you be made aware?"

Invisible Man Presentation: Chapters 20-23