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Invisible Man

Date post: 14-Aug-2015
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Summary By Lea Lucarelli
Transcript
Page 1: Invisible Man

Summary By Lea Lucarelli

Page 2: Invisible Man

• Bledsoe freaks out at narrator because of the Mr. Norton situation

• Would’ve rather had the man see the ideal black life rather than an unfortunate one

• Bledsoe continues his speech and says that he is at the top and has all the control and the narrator has none.

• He ends his akrant by agreeing to give the narrator letters of recommendation to prominent friends in New York

Page 3: Invisible Man

• The vet doctor ends up being on the same bus out of town as the narrator

• Although annoyed by his presence, the narrator shares a conversation with the doctor and discusses white women, the doctor’s transferring to Washington because of what happened with Mr. Norton and how he blames white establishment for all the misfortunes, his parting advice is to discover the world

• Narrator’s confidence returns, heads to Harlem where he finds a group of black people and meets a man named Ras who yells into crowds. The narrator fears that a riot may break out, but the police simply show him to men’s house, not to a jail cell.

Page 4: Invisible Man

• First, goes to Mr. Bates’ office, hands the letter to the secretary, she disappears. Then reappears and tells him that her boss is busy and will contact him.

• This happens time and time again, the only letter that he holds on to is one for Mr. Emerson who happened to be out of town. He writes a letter asking for an interview.

• First, he becomes suspicious of secretaries, but then devises a theory about Mr. Norton and Dr. Bledsoe being behind his predicament.

• Receives a letter from Mr. Emerson

Page 5: Invisible Man

• Arrives at Emerson’s luxurious office, meets with his son who informs him that the letters were actually terrible and that he’d been betrayed

• Emerson’s son advises him to get a job at Liberty Paints, and tells the narrator to show up the following day at the paint plant

Page 6: Invisible Man

• First, he learns to mix the paint but does it wrong, so he is transferred to working with Mr. Brockway

• At first Brockway worries that the narrator is going to take his job, but he gets over this suspicious and they get along for a while

• The narrator goes to get his lunch and runs into a group of men that resemble a union

• When he returns to Mr. Brockway and explains, Brockway flies into a rage at the idea of a union and physically attacks the narrator

• Brockway manages to run away before all of the pressure in the tanks reaches a critical point, then the tanks explode and the narrator is covered in white paint and knocked unconscious.

Page 7: Invisible Man

• Bledsoe is a big hulking man, symbolizing authority and the massive amounts of power and control that Bledsoe (authority) had, and the narrator had none. (Chapter 6)

• The colorful caged birds in Emerson’s office – white man caging something colorful and beautiful. The birds are symbolic of the narrator and are an example of the plight that the oppressed black nation endured. (Chapter 10)

• The Liberty Paints Plant is symbolic of the racism in American society, because in order to make the trademark “Optic White” paint, one must mix in many dark colors, such as “Dead Black.” However, all traces of color disappear, leaving only a beautiful white surface. (Chapter 10)


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