BLINDNESS!!!In

Invisible Man

Darian RusowTravisPrill

Blindness in the Battle Royal

• The boys are blindfolded• Blind to the white man’s racist motives• Blind obedience to the white man

Blindness in college• Statue with a veil – “empty eyes”• Students blind to Norton even though he supports their education• Students never see Norton

• "Then in my mind's eye I see the bronze statue of the college Founder, the cold Father symbol, his hands outstretched in the breathtaking gesture of lifting a veil that flutters in hard, metallic folds above the face of a kneeling slave; and I am standing puzzled, unable to decide whether the veil is really being lifted, or lowered more firmly in place; whether I am witnessing a revelation or a more efficient blinding." (p. 36)

Golden Day

• A vet says that Norton and the narrator are blind to one another.

“Poor stumblers,” he says,

“neither of you can see the

other. . . .”

Black blinding the White

• Bledsoe wishes to blind Norton by showing him only the good negroes, and not the slums.

“Damn what he wants. We take these white folks where we want them to go, we show them what we want them to see.”

Homer

• Rev. Homer = blind• Students follow blindly• Homer = Homer!!!

Expulsion

• Blind faith• Homer, their legacy, is blind• Narrator has a blinding love for the college• Shackles = multiple forms of enslavement to

continuing blindness

Hospital awakening

• Blindness to his identity

Brotherhood

• Blindly submitting to the Brotherhood.• Narrator points out that black disowned

Trueblood due to their blind allegiance to ideology.

• In a speech, the narrator calls for an end to the blindness that causes division. Then notices that he can’t see his audience. He is a blind leader of a blind audience.

Brotherhood continued….

• Brotherhood membership requires blind obedience.

• Members, Committee and Leaders and blind to ideology.

• Brother Jack’s eye = symbol for their blindness

Women

• Not blind to the color of his skin, just uses him as a tool for her sexual needs.

Fin.