Yes, I am eating my words

So I love Invisible Man, and hope has been restored to me! :D

My first thought when reading the first couple of chapters was, I have read this before, but where? and it bothered me for quite awhile, until I read through chapter 3 and finally figured it out. It was in an SAT subject practice test I took. It was the passage on his grandfather, and I guess I must have understood it pretty well because I answered all of the questions correctly.

"I was considered an example of desirable conduct--just as my grand father had been. And what puzzled me was that the old man had defined it as treachery. When I was praised for my conduct I felt a guilt that in some way I was doing something that was really against the wishes of the white folks, that if they had understood they would have desired me to act just the opposite, that I should have been sulky and mean, and that that really would have been what they wanted, even though they were fooled and thought they wanted me to act as I did" (Ellison 17).

I thought this passage was beautiful, and I think it is a real driving point for the book. All his life the narrator has been giving them smiles, working his way up in the world, and then what happens? I guess he halfway understands his grandfather's treachery when he meets the vet--a man who makes it his plan to do good in the world, only to find his efforts to be pure vanity at best. So Ellison has really set up the book in the first chapter, and I am excited to see the narrator change his tune as the novel progresses.

42) It can be inferred from the passage that the grandfather regarded what he called treachery as
a) an affirmative act, because the deception allows you to prevail
b) a useless act, because those who are betrayed are too obtuse to notice
c) an innocent act, because no one is misled by it
d) an honorable act, because the behavior exhibited is friendly and agreeable
e) an unintentional act, because no one would knowingly engage in such dangerous behavior

I suppose if the narrator's grandfather hadn't been a quiet man who silently rebelled, he would be something like the vet. The vet says, "Already he's learned to repress not only his emotions but his humanity. He's invisible, a walking personification of the Negative, the most perfect achievement of your dreams, sir! The mechanical man!" (Ellison 94).

And still, I am confused. There is something here I don't really understand, and I guess it would make sense to me if I knew why Mr. Norton felt his destiny was with the school. His daughter died and everything, but what does that have to do with the narrator? I do love it when the vet screams at them, "Now the two of you descend the stairs into chaos." There is something here I cannot quite grasp, something bigger. Sure, civil rights, but that might be an overstatement. In my opinion, it is sort of like a counter-culture because the narrator is not interested in taking action. He is not a radical, and given the time frame of the novel, I would guess it could be about the Harlem Renaissance. Seems more like an identity crisis than Civil Rights.

Still, I am rather annoyed with Mr. Norton's character. He is just like those men throwing a scholarship at the narrator--it feels as though it is a cruel game to test the potential of someone and then shoot them down again. As though they are some charity case (and I have to wonder at the parallel between the vet and Mr. Norton, as they both want(ed) something for the dignity of it). And why did he give money to Trueblood for doing something awful? The significance of Trueblood is really irking me. I cannot tell if it is a horror story or just another thing that happened. Is Trueblood simply the other end of the spectrum, those who were so affected by slavery that they could never possibly progress in society? But then Trueblood says it is the "white folks" who stick up for him, as though the people up at the college are ashamed of how he represents what the blacks are trying to leave behind. It seems as though Ellison is just pointing out the condescension of whites in their efforts to help blacks. But wait, he paints both sides and implies the blacks' desertion of pride.

Wow, I just don't know where this book is going, but I will just let it take me there.