Hannah GanoJack CowanHunter DavisJonathaniel AsistanteMatthew Wakhu

INVISIBLE MANCHAPTERS 18-22

The narrator receives an anonymous letter telling him to “not go too fast,” and when he asks Brother Tarp if he knows who sent it, but he doesn’t and tells him a story about how he got a permanent limp and a chain link from his time shackled for saying no to a white man. Another brother suggests wearing the chain as a symbol to distinguish brothers and avoid mistakenly hurting any of themselves. A magazine editor calls the narrator and asks for an interview, which he refuses at fi rst trying to

convince them to interview Clifton instead, but the magazine wanted to give the public a “hero fi gure” and the narrator eventually agrees. Afterwards, Westrum accuses him of using the brotherhood to advance his own goals and an investigation of the narrator’s activities in the brotherhood are reviewed, during which he is transferred to the Harlem district to be a women’s rights spokesperson, which he decides to fully dedicate himself to.

CHAPTER 18: SUMMARY

Brother Tarp’s chain link is a symbol of the trials he faced that gave him his limp, while Brother Westrum and the narrator view it as a symbol for racism and as a symbol for what the brotherhood is fighting against respectively

CHAPTER 18: SYMBOLS

CHAPTER 19…KIND OF

The narrator is sent downtown to lecture at a women’s rights activist campaign, the Women Question.

After a successful speech, he is approached by woman, who ironically also does not have a name.

Ellison does this because during this time period, black people and women were similar in terms of submission and oppression.

Throughout the chapter, Ellison does not provide a name to her face.

However her husband receives one, Hubert.

So lets get down to business. Narrator and woman; instead of talking about the

Brotherhood, they mainly enjoying each other’s company with the aid of wine.

The women uses the words “primitive” and “forceful” when describing his speech, which is quite similar to her ulterior motives.

And she makes the move. WHAM.Right on the lips. With a few minor details, he did the do. Passing out after coitus, he awakens to the sight of

the woman’s husband staring straight into his eyes.

A BIT MORE OF CHAPTER 19

To him both of them are invisibleHubert pays no attention, to the narrator or his

wife even though they clearly just had intercourse

Ellison does this to strengthen the previous message of their similar invisibility to society

The narrator escapes the night with high suspicions of the Brotherhood.

Assuming that they had set up this odd sexual encounter.

However the thoughts of betrayal leave him as he is informed about Clifton has disappearance.

I HOPE YOU LIKE CHAPTER 19

The narrator returns to an unfamiliar Harlem. Two men at a bar respond with hostility when they learn he is from the Brotherhood. He fi nds out that the Brotherhood has withdrawn from Harlem to focus on more national issues. He waits to be called into a strategy meeting with the leaders of the Brotherhood, only to discover that they have excluded him from the meeting without his knowledge. As he furiously walks through Harlem, he comes across Clifton, who has left the Brotherhood and

is pedaling “Sambo” dolls in the street. The narrator is upset that Clifton selling the racist dolls. The police show up and Clifton takes his dolls and runs from them, dropping one before the narrator. The narrator begins to crush it beneath his foot but puts it in his briefcase when he sees a police offi cer coming. As he walks along, he sees a crowd gathered and arrives just in time to witness Clifton lash out against a white police offi cer. The offi cer then shoots Clifton, murdering him in the middle of the crowd.

CHAPTER 20: SUMMARY

The narrator’s exclusion from the meeting serves to demonstrate his blindness to how the white leaders of the Brotherhood are controlling him for their own use

The Sambo dolls represent blacks’ continued servitude to whites. When Clifton sells the dolls he is mocking the stereotype they represent by singing jingles for the dolls, saying, “shake him, you cannot break him,” but at the same time he is perpetuating the stereotype by groveling to white customers in return for their money and tolerance.

When the narrator begins to crush the doll but instead puts it in his briefcase it symbolizes how he yet again is unable to establish his own identity and instead accepts the stereotypes of others.

CHAPTER 20: SYMBOLS

After the narrator witnesses Tod Clifton’s death, he returnsto Harlem in shock. He realizes how to make the black doll, Sambo, dance through a string attached to the back. The brotherhood members finally find out about Clifton’s death, but they fail in reaching the headquarters. However, he rallies members for a march to honor Clifton. The community is angered by

the brutal death of Clifton from the police force and hundreds show up to march. The narrator presents a speech at the end of the march and hopes that the tension that develops through the speech will recover the brotherhood’s influence on the community.

CHAPTER 21: SUMMARY

Sambo doll - Black Americans’ actions are still determined by other people and they are not yet completely “free”.

Two black pigeons rising about a white barn- symbolizes that the black race is rising above slavery. Symbol of the freedom the narrator wants

These symbols represent the fight that the narrator must struggle with. He wants to have freedom and he longs for it, however, when he sees the Sambo doll a feeling of betrayal develops within him because it represents slavery. This chapter is to highlight that fight the narrator is experiencing.

CHAPTER 21: SYMBOLS

The narrator returns to his offi ce to fi nd Brother Jack and the other committee members waiting for him. They are angry that he has associated the Brotherhood with the protest of Tod Clifton’s death without the committee’s approval. Jack informs the narrator that he was hired not to think but to talk—and to say only what the Brotherhood tells him to say. The Brotherhood offi cially regards Clifton as a traitor to the organization’s ideals—Jack cites the group’s alleged objection to Clifton’s “anti-Negro” dolls—and would never have endorsed the eulogy that the narrator gave. The narrator replies that the black community has accused the Brotherhood itself of betrayal.

Jack says that the Brotherhood tells the community what to think. The narrator accuses Jack of trying to be the “great white father.” Just then, one of Jack’s eyes—a false one—pops out of his head into a drinking glass on the narrator’s desk. He informs the narrator that he lost the eye while doing his duty, stating that his personal sacrifi ce proves his loyalty to the Brotherhood and its ideals. The argument winds down, and the committee takes its leave of the narrator. Jack instructs him to see Brother Hambro (a white member of the organization) to learn the Brotherhood’s new program.

CHAPTER 22: SUMMARY

Loyalty is questioned on both sides as the Invisible Man and Jack argue over Tod Clifton’s death.

Discipline and Sacrifice (Displayed by Jack’s glass eye)

CHAPTER 22: SYMBOLS