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Follow the journey of the protagonist in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man as he navigates through a world filled with blindfolded terror, smoke-filled chaos, and blurred visions, ultimately questioning the true meaning of identity and the society's perception of race.
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Chapter 1 • During the Battle Royale... • Blindfold: “I felt the cloth pressed into place...I felt a sudden fit of blind terror. I was unused to darkness” (21). • Smoke: “I saw the howling red faces crouching tense beneath the cloud of blue-gray smoke. For a moment the world wavered, unraveled, flowed” (25).
Chapter 2 • “When yo black ‘bomination is birthed to bawl yo wicked sin befo the eyes of God!” (67). Kate speaking to Trueblood of his child. • “You feel no inner turmoil, no need to cast out the offending eye” (51). Mr. Norton talking to Trueblood about the incest, but covertly.
Chapter 3 • While IM rushes about confused at the Golden Day, he notices Mr. Norton’s eyes and comments, “With his eyes closed he seemed more threatening than with them open” (86).
“Dr. Bledsoe stopped and composed his angry face like a sculptor, making it a bland mask, leaving only the sparkle of his eyes to betray the emotion that I had seen only a moment before” (102). After Bledsoe took his anger out on IM’s alleged mistake, he composed himself on his way to see Mr. Norton so that he could act as though he actually respects and cares for the man. Chapter 4
Chapter 5 • “The moon that looms blood-red behind the chapel like a fallen sun... A white man’s bloodshot eye” (110). • This quote is spoken by IM on his way out from talking with Bledsoe and making his way to listen to Barbee.
Chapter 5 cont. • “For a swift instant, between the gesture and the opaque glitter of his glasses, I saw the blinking of sightless eyes. Homer A. Barbee was blind” (133). • IM was so effected by Barbee’s speech of the Founder that he missed the signs of Barbee’s blindness.
Chapter 6 • “I was stumbling along, holding on desperately to one of my eyes in order to keep from bursting out my brain against some familiar object swerved into my path by my distorted vision” (147). This scene happened right after his confrontation with Bledsoe, trying to show IM what a black man should and should not do.
Chapter 7 • “He’s going free, in the broad daylight and alone. I can remember when young fellows like him had first to commit a crime, or be accused of one, before they tried such a thing. Instead of leaving in the light of morning they went in the dark of night” (154-155). IM’s conversation with the vet on the bus.
Chapter 11 • “A man was looking at me out of a bright third eye that glowed from the center of his forehead” (231). • After the accident at Liberty Paints, I.M. Is hospitalized and sees the doctor with a “third eye” on his forehead. He is blinded by the light reflecting off of it.
Chapter 13 • “My eyes focused into the endless succession of barber shops, beauty parlors, confectioneries, luncheonettes, fish houses, and hog maw joints walking close to the windows the snowflakes lacing swift between simultaneously forming a curtain, a veil, and stripping it aside” (262).
Chapter 14 • “Her eyes brushing slowly over my face... My face was warm but I returned my glance as steadily as I dared. It was not the harsh uninterested-in-you-as-a-human-being stare that I’d known in the South... It was something more, a direct what-type-of-mere-man-have-we-here kind of look that seemed to go beneath the skin” (302).
Chapter 16 • “I could see rows of blurred faces then I was suddenly blinded and I felt myself crash into the man ahead of me... ‘It’s the spotlight’” (338). • IM experienced the blinding spotlight, causing him to forget his speech and improvise, playing on the metaphor of blindness.
Chapter 16 cont. • IM delivers a speech on dispossession and the Brotherhood’s place within it • “We’re a nation of one eyed mice- Did you ever see such a sight in your life? Such an uncommon sight... You know, if we aren’t careful, they’ll slip up on your blind sides and- plop! Out goes our last good eye and we’re blind as bats!” (343).
Chapter 17 • Ras, a black militant, accuses Clifton of turning back on his heritage. While IM is trying to clear things up, Ras says to him.. • “’Look at him, mahn; open your eyes,’ he said to me. ’I look like that I rock the blahsted world! They know about me in Japan, India, all the colored countries. Youth! Intelligence! The mahn’s natural prince! Where is your eyes? Where is your self respect?’” (372).
Chapter 20 • “My mind flowed. It was as though in this short block I was forced to walk past everyone I’d ever known and no one would smile or call my name. No one fixed me in his eyes. I walked in feverish isolation” (443). • After watching Clifton’s death, IM was disgusted with the society he currently lived in.
Chapter 22 • This was said towards IM during his conversation with Brother Jack. • “Something seemed to erupt out of his face... hearing it strike sharply against the table and roll as his arm shot out and snatched an object the size of a large marble... A glass eye. A buttermilk white eye... staring fixedly at me” (474).
Chapter 23 • “They were of a green glass so dark that it appeared black, and I put them on immediately, plunging into blackness and moving outside. I could barely see... And the streets swarmed in a green vagueness” (482). • “I trembled with excitement, they hadn’t recognized me... It hides me in front of their eyes” (485). • Because of these sunglasses, IM is now perceived as Rinehart
Chapter 25 • “They want the streets to flow with blood...so they can turn your death and sorrow and defeat into propaganda... Don’t you see it?” (558). • IM said this in defense to the demands of death made by Ras.
