Ellison Invisible Man Chapter 1-25 summary

chapter 10

The narrator arrives at the Liberty Paints plant. A huge electric sign reads "keep america pure with liberty paints." The narrator's supervisor, Mr. Kimbro, leads him to a long room filled with buckets of paint. Kimbro demonstrates the job: he opens buckets filled with a foul, milky brown substance and drips ten drops of another black chemical into them; then he stirs the buckets vigorously until the paint becomes glossy white; last, he applies the paint to small, rectangular wooden boards and waits for them to dry. If they dry brilliant white, then the job has been done correctly. Kimbro brags that the Optic White of Liberty Paints is the purest white that can be found anywhere. He says that it can cover up almost anything. When only a little of the black chemical remains, Kimbro instructs the narrator to go to the tank room to get more. There, however, the narrator finds seven tanks marked by incomprehensible codes, leaving him unable to determine which tank contains the right chemical. He chooses one by scent and continues to mix and paint the tiles, but the tiles turn out sticky and gray, not hard and glossy. Kimbro returns and becomes infuriated, scolding the narrator for putting concentrated remover into the paint and thereby ruining some seventy-five buckets of paint. Kimbro fills the dropper with the correct chemical and leaves the narrator to his job. The paint samples still dry with a vague gray tinge, but Kimbro doesn't seem to notice. Later, the narrator is sent to the furnace room to assist the engineer, Lucius Brockway. Brockway, who believes that assistants are always college-educated men who want to usurp his job, declares that he doesn't need an assistant but sets the narrator to work anyway. He instructs the narrator to watch the pressure gauges on the boiler. Brockway takes pride in his indispensable role in making Optic White paint, Liberty Paint's trademark color, since he alone can mix the base for the paint correctly. The slogan for the color is, "If It's Optic White, It's the Right White." The slogan reminds the narrator of an old Southern saying: "If you're white, you're right." Lunchtime arrives, and the narrator returns to the locker room to retrieve his lunch, interrupting a union meeting. Some members accuse him of being a "fink," or an informer, when they hear that he is Brockway's assistant. The men resolve to investigate the narrator and then allow him to retrieve his lunch. When Brockway learns about the union meeting, he becomes furious and threatens to kill the narrator if he doesn't leave the plant. The narrator denies belonging to the union. Brockway and the narrator begin pummeling each other until Brockway loses his dentures while biting the narrator. Brockway blubbers about the union trying to steal his job. The narrator notices the boilers hissing, and Brockway shouts for him to turn the valve in order to lower the pressure. The narrator doesn't have the strength to do so, however, and the boiler explodes. The narrator falls unconscious under a pile of machinery and "stinking goo."

chapter 24

Crowds begin to form in Harlem at the slightest provocation; store windows are smashed and clashes erupt. Ras agitates the pointless violence further. The narrator sends out Brotherhood members to discourage the violence and denounces the press for exaggerating minor incidents. He reports at the Brotherhood headquarters that the Harlem branch has instituted a clean-up campaign to clear the neighborhood of trash and distract the people from Tod Clifton's death; he lies to them that Harlem has begun to quiet down and hands them a false list of new members. The Brotherhood fails to detect the narrator's deception. The narrator decides against using Emma to discover the real goals of the Brotherhood. Instead, he decides to use Sybil, a neglected wife of one of the Brotherhood members, who had once indicated that she wanted to get to know him better. Inviting her to his apartment, he plans to act smooth and charming like Rinehart. He succeeds, however, only in getting himself and Sybil drunk. She has no interest in politics and only wants him to play a black savage in her rape fantasy. The narrator suddenly receives a frantic call from the Brotherhood in Harlem, asking him to come as soon as possible. He hears the sound of breaking glass, and the line goes dead. He grabs his briefcase and puts Sybil in a cab headed downtown. He himself walks uptown toward Harlem. As he passes under a bridge, a flock of birds flies over him and covers him with droppings. A riot erupts in Harlem. The narrator encounters a group of looters who give conflicting stories about what caused the initial outbreak. One mentions a young man "everyone is mad about," obviously referring to Clifton. Others mention Ras, while still others talk of a white woman having started the first clash

chapter 16-17

Members of the Brotherhood drive the narrator to a rally, telling him to hold off his speech until the crowd becomes frenzied. The rally takes place in a former boxing ring. The narrator notices a torn photograph of a former prizefight champion who lost his vision during a rigged fight and later died in a home for the blind. As the narrator climbs the ramp to the stage, the spotlight blinds him temporarily. The crowd chants, "No more dispossessing of the dispossessed!" As the narrator steps to the microphone, the glaring light prevents him from seeing the audience. In his nervousness, he forgets all of the catchphrases that he has read in the literature of the Brotherhood and decides to improvise. The narrator's speech plays on an extended metaphor of blindness and aligns itself along a dichotomy of "they" and "we." In his oratory, the narrator says that "they" have dispossessed each one of "us" of an eye. "We" walk down the sidewalks, he says, blind on one side, while an oily scoundrel in the middle of the street throws stones at "us." The narrator calls to the crowd to regain "our" sight and band together so that "we" might see both sides of the street. The audience applauds thunderously when he finishes. He steps blindly from the platform, stumbling into the arms of his admirers. Afterward, some of the Brothers criticize his speech for its inflammatory, unscientific style. They decide to send the narrator to Brother Hambro to nurture his natural talent for speaking but infuse it with the rhetoric of the Brotherhood. The narrator returns home feeling like a new person, radically different from the boy expelled from college. Yet, in his moment of pride and triumph, memories of his grandfather fleetingly haunt him. Summary: Chapter 17 After the narrator has studied the Brotherhood's ideology intensely for months, the committee votes to appoint him as chief spokesperson for the Harlem district. The narrator receives his own office and meets Tod Clifton, a black member of the executive committee, who informs him that Ras the Exhorter, a militant black nationalist, remains the chief opponent of the Brotherhood in Harlem. Ras—whom the narrator sees giving an impassioned speech when he first arrives in New York—calls for complete and utter distrust of white culture. One day, the Brotherhood holds a rally in protest of what it deems to be racist eviction policies in Harlem. Ras and his followers disrupt the rally, and a brawl ensues. In the darkness of the night, the narrator has difficulty distinguishing his followers from those of Ras. He finds Clifton and Ras locked in an intense fight. Ras pulls a knife but decides to spare Clifton, citing their common skin color. He asks Clifton why he works with the Brotherhood, in which black members constitute the minority, and accuses him of turning his back on his heritage. He insinuates that the Brotherhood lured Clifton with the promise of white women and warns that the white members of the Brotherhood will eventually betray the black members. The narrator begins calling Harlem community leaders for support in the Brotherhood's fight against unfair eviction. These leaders all fall in line behind the Brotherhood on the issue. The narrator's new name becomes well known in the community. He throws himself into his work, organizing marches and rallies. Yet he still has nightmares about Dr. Bledsoe, Lucius Brockway, and his grandfather, and he feels a profound split between his public and private selves.

chapter 4-6

Mr. Norton asks to be taken to his room and requests a personal visit from Dr. Bledsoe, the president of the college. Bledsoe becomes furious when the narrator informs him of the afternoon's events, scolding him that he should have known to show powerful white trustees only what the college wants them to see. When Bledsoe arrives at Norton's room, he orders the narrator to leave and instructs him to attend the chapel service that evening. In his room later that afternoon, the narrator receives a message that Bledsoe wants to speak with him in Norton's room. He arrives to find only Mr. Norton, however, who informs him that Bledsoe had to leave suddenly but that the narrator can find him in his office after the evening service. Norton says that he explained to Bledsoe that the narrator was not responsible for what happened and adds that he thinks that Bledsoe understands. Summary: Chapter 5 Reverend Homer A. Barbee speaks at the chapel service. He is African American and wears dark glasses. He tells the story of the Founder, who was born into slavery and poverty but possessed a precocious intelligence. The Founder was almost killed as a child when a cousin splashed him with lye, rendering him impotent. After nine days in a coma, he woke, as if resurrected. He taught himself how to read and later escaped slavery. He went north and pursued further education. After many years, he returned to the South and founded the college to which he devoted the rest of his life's work. The sermon deeply moves the narrator. Barbee stumbles on the way back to his chair, and his glasses fall from his face. The narrator catches a glimpse of Barbee's sightless eyes and realizes that Barbee is blind. Summary: Chapter 6 "I's big and black and I say 'Yes, suh' as loudly as any burrhead when it's convenient, but I'm still the king down here. . . ." (See Important Quotations Explained) After the service, the narrator meets with Bledsoe, who is angry that the narrator took Norton to the old slave quarters, Jim Trueblood's cabin, and the Golden Day. The narrator protests that Norton ordered him to stop at the cabin. Bledsoe replies that white people constantly give foolish orders and that the narrator, having grown up in the South as a black man, should know how to lie his way out of such situations. Bledsoe says that he will have to investigate the veteran who mocked Norton. He picks up a slave's leg shackle and informs the narrator that he must be disciplined. The narrator threatens to tell everyone that Bledsoe broke his promise to Norton not to punish him. Bledsoe responds angrily that he has worked hard to achieve his position of power and that he doesn't plan to lose it. Rather than expel the narrator outright, Bledsoe tells him to go to New York for the summer and work to earn his year's tuition. Bledsoe hints that if he does well he will earn the right to return to school. He offers to send letters of recommendation to some of the trustees to ensure that the narrator gets work. The next day, the narrator retrieves seven sealed letters and assures Bledsoe that he doesn't resent his punishment. Bledsoe praises his attitude, but the narrator remains haunted by his grandfather's prophetic dying words.

chapter 7-9

On the bus to New York, the narrator encounters the veteran who mocked Mr. Norton and the college. Dr. Bledsoe has arranged to have the man transferred to a psychiatric facility in Washington, D.C. The narrator cannot believe that Bledsoe could have anything to do with the transfer, but the veteran winks and tells him to learn to see under the surface of things. He tells the narrator to hide himself from white people, from authority, from the invisible man who is pulling his strings. Crenshaw, the veteran's attendant, tells him that he talks too much. The veteran replies that he verbalizes things that most men only feel. Before switching to another bus, the veteran advises the narrator to serve as his own father. The narrator arrives in New York and gazes with astonishment at a black officer directing white drivers in the street. He sees a gathering on a sidewalk in Harlem, in which a man with a West Indian accent (whom he later learns is Ras the Exhorter) gives a speech about "chasing them [the whites] out." The narrator feels as though a riot might erupt at any minute. He quickly finds a place called the Men's House and takes a room. Summary: Chapter 8 Over the next few days, the narrator delivers all of the letters of recommendation that Bledsoe gave him except for one, which is addressed to a Mr. Emerson. A week passes, but he receives no response. He tries to telephone the addressees, all trustees of the college, only to receive polite refusals from their secretaries. His money is running out, and he begins to entertain vague doubts about Bledsoe's motives. Summary: Chapter 9 The narrator sets out to deliver his last letter and meets a man named Peter Wheatstraw, who speaks in a black dialectical banter and recognizes the narrator's Southern roots. Wheatstraw describes Harlem as a bear's den, which reminds the narrator of the folk stories of Jack the Rabbit and Jack the Bear. The narrator stops for breakfast at a deli. The waiter says he looks like he would enjoy the special: pork chops, grits, eggs, hot biscuits, and coffee. Insulted by the waiter's stereotyping, the narrator orders orange juice, toast, and coffee. The narrator arrives at Mr. Emerson's office. He meets Emerson's son, a nervous little man. The son takes the letter and goes off to read it, only to return with a vaguely disturbed expression, chattering about his analyst and about injustice. Finally, the son allows the narrator to read the letter: Bledsoe has told each of the addressees that the narrator has earned permanent expulsion and that Bledsoe had to send him away under false pretenses in order to protect the college; Bledsoe requests that the narrator be allowed to "continue undisturbed in [his] vain hopes [of returning to college] while remaining as far as possible from our midst." Emerson says that his father is a strict, unforgiving man and that he will not help the narrator, but he offers to secure the narrator a job at the Liberty Paints plant. The narrator leaves the office full of anger and a desire for revenge. He imagines Bledsoe requesting that Emerson "hope the bearer of this letter to death and keep him running." He calls the plant and is told to report to work the next morning.

chapter 2-3

Recalling his time at the college, the narrator remembers with particular fascination the college's bronze statue of its Founder, a black man. He describes the statue as cold and paternal, its eyes empty. At the end of his junior year, the narrator takes a job driving Mr. Norton, one of the college's white millionaire founders, around the campus. In an attempt to show the old gentleman the countryside near the campus, the narrator unwittingly drives Norton to an area of ramshackle cabins. The cabins, which once served as slave quarters, now house poor black sharecroppers. Though Norton finds the cabins intriguing, the narrator immediately regrets having driven him to this area, as he knows that Jim Trueblood lives here. The college regards Trueblood with hatred and distrust because he has impregnated his own daughter. Norton reacts with horror when the narrator reveals this information, but he insists on speaking with Trueblood. Trueblood explains that he had a strange dream and woke to find himself having sex with his daughter. Norton listens with a morbid, voyeuristic fascination. Trueblood expresses wonder at the fact that white people have showered him with more money and help than before he committed the unspeakable taboo of incest. Norton, shocked at the story, hands Trueblood a one-hundred-dollar bill to buy toys for his children. He gets back into the car in a daze and requests some whiskey to calm his nerves. Summary: Chapter 3 The narrator, fearing that Norton might die from shock, drives to the nearest tavern, the Golden Day, which serves black people and also happens to be a brothel. As he approaches the Golden Day, the narrator encounters a group of mentally disturbed black war veterans who are being allowed an afternoon outside their home. Their attendant is nowhere to be seen. The narrator intends to dash in and out of the tavern, as the establishment has a bad reputation, but the proprietor refuses to sell take-out whiskey. Some of the veterans help carry Norton inside, since he has fallen unconscious. As they soon as they pour some whiskey down his throat, he begins to regain consciousness. The brutish attendant in charge of the veterans now appears, shouting down from the area of the building devoted to the brothel. Clad only in shorts, he asks why the veterans are yelling. A brawl ensues. Norton falls unconscious again, and the narrator and one of the veterans carry him upstairs to where the prostitutes stay. This particular veteran claims to be a doctor and a graduate of the college. After Norton wakes, the veteran mocks Norton's interest in the narrator and the college. He says that Norton views the narrator as a mark on his scorecard of achievement rather than as a man and that the narrator thinks of Norton not as a man but as a god. He calls the narrator an automaton stricken with a blindness that makes him do Norton's bidding and claims that this blindness is the narrator's chief asset. Norton becomes angry and demands that the narrator take him back to the college. During the ride back, Norton remains completely silent.

chapter 25

The narrator learns that Ras is inciting the violent destruction, and he realizes that the Brotherhood had planned the race riots all along, deliberately ceding power to Ras and allowing Harlem to fall into mass chaos. He becomes caught up in one rioter's plans to burn down a tenement building and runs from the burning building, only to realize he has left his briefcase inside. He risks the flames to retrieve it. He wants to put on his Rinehart costume, which is in his briefcase, but the sunglasses have broken. Continuing to run through the chaos, he comes to a looted building where bodies appear to hang lynched from the ceiling. In fact, the bodies are mannequins. He then encounters a spear-wielding Ras, dressed in the costume of an Abyssinian chieftain and riding a black horse. Ras calls for his followers to lynch the narrator as a traitor to the black people and to hang him among the mannequins. The narrator tries to explain that the black community, by turning against itself now, by burning and looting its own homes and stores, is only falling into the trap that the Brotherhood has set. But Ras yells for the narrator's death, and the narrator runs away. He escapes only to encounter two police officers in the street, who ask to see the contents of his briefcase. He runs and falls through an open manhole into a coal cellar. The police mock him and put the manhole cover back in place, trapping him underground. In order to provide himself with light, the narrator burns the items in his briefcase one by one. These include his high school diploma and Clifton's doll. He finds the slip of paper on which Jack had written his new Brotherhood name and also comes across the anonymous threatening letter. As the papers burn to ashes, he realizes that the handwriting on both is identical. He sleeps and dreams of Jack, Emerson, Bledsoe, Norton, and Ras. The men mock him, castrate him, and declare that they have stripped him of his illusions. He wakes with their cries of anguish and fury ringing in his ears. He decides to stay underground and affirms, "The end was in the beginning."

chapter 12-15

The narrator leaves the subway and collapses on the street. Several people help to carry him to the home of a kind black woman named Mary. When he wakes, she asks him why he came to New York City from the South. He replies that he wanted to be an educator. She cautions against the city's corrupting influence—she, too, came from the South—and says, "I'm in New York, but New York ain't in me." The narrator gets up to leave, and Mary tells him that he should come back if he ever wants to rent a room somewhere besides the Men's House, adding that she offers a fair rent. The narrator's white overalls draw hostile stares at the Men's House. He knows that he can no longer live there. He scorns the ideals of older advocates of racial progress still mired in their dreams of black business empires; he pities those who still believe in the post-Civil War dreams of freedom within segregation. He mocks those who work insignificant jobs but don expensive clothing and affect the manners of courtly Southern congressmen, hoping to cover up their low social status. As he heads for the elevator, the narrator sees a laughing man whom he mistakes for Dr. Bledsoe. He promptly empties a spittoon on the man's head but then discovers that his victim is a prominent Baptist preacher. He escapes before anyone can catch him. He later persuades an amused porter to retrieve his belongings from inside the building and learns that the Men's House has banned him for ninety-nine years and a day. The narrator takes a room at Mary's apartment. He bristles with irritation at her constant expectation that he will take up some leadership role in the black community. Yet she never criticizes him when he fails to do so, or when he cannot pay for food or rent. The narrator begins to feel the desire for activism anyhow; within himself he feels a "spot of black anger." His old urge to give speeches returns as winter settles over New York. Summary: Chapter 13 The narrator encounters a street vendor selling baked yams and experiences a sudden nostalgia for the South. He buys three to eat as he walks down the street, feeling totally free. He imagines his classmates' shock at seeing him with these emblems of Southern culture. He scorns them for distancing themselves from all of the things that they in fact like: yams, chitterlings, and boiled hog's maws. He comes upon a crowd of people gathered to watch as an eviction takes place. The crowd regards this act of dispossession as a common occurrence. White men drag household furnishings out of an apartment and lug one chair out the door with an old black woman still sitting in it. Looking at the contents of the old woman's and her husband's lives scattered roughly across the pavement, the narrator identifies acutely with the couple. He becomes angry and spontaneously delivers a rousing speech that incites the crowd to resistance. The crowd then carries the couple's belongings back into the building. The police arrive, and the narrator flees. He thinks that he has successfully escaped when he hears a voice behind him: "That was a masterful bit of persuasion, brother." The voice belongs to a white man, who claims he is a friend. He takes the narrator to a coffeehouse and tries to persuade him to become a paid spokesperson for his political organization's Harlem branch. The narrator turns him down; the man tells him that his name is Brother Jack and gives him a phone number to call should he change his mind. Summary: Chapter 14 The narrator changes his mind as soon as he returns to Mary's home, realizing that she has been housing and feeding him for free since his compensation check from the factory ran out weeks earlier. He calls the number that Jack gave him and agrees to meet him on Lenox Avenue. A car pulls up with Jack and several other men inside. They drive to a hotel called the Chthonian, where a cocktail party seems to be taking place. Jack introduces the narrator to his mistress, Emma, who whispers not quite softly enough to Jack, "But don't you think he should be a little blacker?" Jack explains that his organization, called the Brotherhood, focuses on social activism, banding together to fight for people who have been "dispossessed of their heritage." He says that the narrator will be given some documents to read to help him decide whether to join the Brotherhood. He asks the narrator if he would like to be the new Booker T. Washington and rambles on about an impending world crisis, declaring that destruction lies ahead if social changes are not made—changes that have to be brought about by the people. The narrator accepts the position, and Jack informs him that he must change his name, move to an apartment provided by the Brotherhood, and make a complete break with his past. Jack writes down the narrator's new name on a slip of paper and gives it to him. "This is your new identity," he says. He also gives the narrator three hundred dollars for back rent, and explains that he will receive sixty dollars a week, a large sum. The narrator returns to Mary's apartment late that night. Summary: Chapter 15 [T]he cast-iron figure of a very black, red-lipped and wide-mouthed Negro . . . his face an enormous grin . . . (See Important Quotations Explained) The next morning, the narrator notices for the first time an object standing next to his door: a cast-iron coin bank in the form of a black man with bright red lips. If one places a coin into the statue's hand and presses a lever on the back, the coin flips into the grinning mouth. The narrator breaks the statue in a fury but then cleans up the pieces, along with the coins that scatter on the floor. Ashamed to tell Mary about his deed, he gathers the debris in an old newspaper and hides the package in his coat pocket. He pays his debt and leaves Mary's house without telling her that he will not return. The narrator throws the package into a garbage can outside, but an old woman demands that he take his trash out of her can. He leaves the package in the snow at an intersection. Another man, thinking that the narrator has left the package behind accidentally, follows him across the street and gives it back to him. The narrator finally drops the package into his briefcase and gets onto the subway. He notices people reading newspapers that declare in bold headlines: "Violent Protest Over Harlem Eviction." He buys a new suit and calls Jack, who instructs him to go to his new apartment on the Upper East Side, where he will find literature on the Brotherhood awaiting his perusal. Jack wants the narrator to give a speech at a Harlem rally scheduled for that evening.

chapter 18-19

The narrator receives an anonymous, unstamped letter telling him not to "go too fast" and to remember that he is still a black man in a white world. He asks another black member of the Brotherhood, Brother Tarp, if anyone in the organization dislikes him. Tarp assures him that he is well liked and says that he doesn't know who wrote the letter. Tarp asks the narrator if he comes from the South. Tarp then confides in him that he spent nineteen years in a black chain gang for having said "no" to a white man. He gives the narrator a leg iron to remind him of their real cause. Another black member of the group, Brother Wrestrum, glimpses the leg iron on the narrator's desk and suggests that he put it away because it "dramatizes" the racial differences in the Brotherhood. Wrestrum hints that some members of the Brotherhood hold racist attitudes, but the narrator disregards him. Wrestrum then suggests that every member of the Brotherhood wear a symbol so that the Brothers can recognize their own members: Tod Clifton once beat up a white Brother during a street brawl after mistaking him for one of the hoodlums trying to quash a Brotherhood rally. A magazine editor calls the office to request an interview with the narrator. The narrator tries to persuade the editor to interview Clifton instead, but the editor cites the narrator's favorable public image; he wants to give his readers a hero figure. The narrator explains that every Brother is a cog in the machine, each sacrificing personal ambitions for the benefit of the whole organization. Wrestrum silently encourages the narrator as he expresses these sentiments. However, the narrator yields and agrees to the interview, partly to spite the overbearing Wrestrum. Wrestrum leaves the office. Two weeks later, Wrestrum accuses the narrator of using the Brotherhood to further his own personal ambitions. He points to the magazine interview as evidence. The narrator considers Wrestrum's face a mask: behind the mask, he imagines, the real Wrestrum is laughing. The committee finds the narrator innocent in regard to the magazine article but decides to conduct a thorough investigation of his other work with the Brotherhood. They transfer him downtown, out of the Harlem District, and make him a women's rights spokesperson for the duration of the investigation. Although disappointed, the narrator decides to dedicate himself fully to his new assignment. He packs his papers into his briefcase and leaves. Summary: Chapter 19 After the narrator's first lecture as a women's rights activist, a white woman invites him into her home to discuss the Brotherhood's ideology. She turns out to be a neglected wife who aims to seduce him. She and the narrator sleep together. Later in the night, the woman's husband comes home. Since the husband and wife sleep in separate bedrooms, he simply pokes his head inside her darkened room, briefly asking her to wake him early in the morning. When the wife bids him a good night's rest, he returns the sentiment, but with a short dry laugh. The narrator dresses and rushes from the building, unsure of whether he dreamed the husband, and incredulous that the husband seemed not to notice him. He vows never to get himself into such a situation again. The Brotherhood summons the narrator to an emergency meeting. The members inform him that he will be transferred back to Harlem and that Clifton has disappeared. The Brotherhood has lost popularity in Harlem, while Ras has gained an ever larger following. Jack tells the narrator that he must attend a strategy meeting the next day.

chapter 22-23

The narrator returns to his office to find 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 officially 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 sacrifice 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. Summary: Chapter 23 The Harlem community's outrage over Clifton's death continues to build. The narrator passes Ras (once known as "Ras the Exhorter," he now calls himself "Ras the Destroyer") giving a speech. Ras denounces the Brotherhood for not following through with the momentum that the funeral sparked. Two of Ras's followers briefly scuffle with the narrator, but the narrator escapes. In an attempt to disguise himself and protect himself from further physical attack, the narrator purchases a pair of sunglasses with dark green lenses. After he puts them on, a woman walks up to him and addresses him as "Rinehart." The narrator replies that he is not Rinehart, and she tells him to get away from her before he gets her into trouble. The narrator augments his disguise with a large hat. As he makes his way back to Ras's meeting, several people address him as "Rinehart" again. A woman on the street thinks that he is Rinehart, her bookie; a prostitute thinks that he is Rinehart, her pimp; he passes a gathering of people waiting for "Reverend Rinehart," the "spiritual technologist," to hold a revival. The narrator is astounded at his ignorance of Rinehart's identity, with which apparently everyone else in the community is familiar. The narrator finally reaches Brother Hambro's apartment. Hambro informs him that the Brotherhood intends to sacrifice its influence in the Harlem community to pursue other, wider political goals. The narrator leaves Hambro's apartment in a fury and decides to follow his grandfather's advice: he will "yes, agree, and grin the Brotherhood to death." He plans to assure the Brotherhood's members that the community stands in full agreement with their new policy and to fill out false membership cards to inflate the Brotherhood's Harlem membership. He also plans to discover the committee's real goals by cultivating a relationship with a woman close to one of the Brotherhood's important leaders. He thinks that perhaps he should try Emma, Jack's mistress.

chapter 1

The narrator speaks of his grandparents, freed slaves who, after the Civil War, believed that they were separate but equal—that they had achieved equality with whites despite segregation. The narrator's grandfather lived a meek and quiet life after being freed. On his deathbed, however, he spoke bitterly to the narrator's father, comparing the lives of black Americans to warfare and noting that he himself felt like a traitor. He counseled the narrator's father to undermine the whites with "yeses" and "grins" and advised his family to "agree 'em to death and destruction." Now the narrator too lives meekly; he too receives praise from the white members of his town. His grandfather's words haunt him, for the old man deemed such meekness to be treachery. The narrator recalls delivering the class speech at his high school graduation. The speech urges humility and submission as key to the advancement of black Americans. It proves such a success that the town arranges to have him deliver it at a gathering of the community's leading white citizens. The narrator arrives and receives instructions to take part in the "battle royal" that figures as part of the evening's entertainment. The narrator and some of his classmates (who are black) don boxing gloves and enter the ring. A naked, blonde, white woman with an American flag painted on her stomach parades about; some of the white men demand that the black boys look at her and others threaten them if they don't. The white men then blindfold the youths and order them to pummel one another viciously. The narrator suffers defeat in the last round. After the men have removed the blindfolds, they lead the contestants to a rug covered with coins and a few crumpled bills. The boys lunge for the money, only to discover that an electric current runs through the rug. During the mad scramble, the white men attempt to force the boys to fall face forward onto the rug. When it comes time for the narrator to give his speech, the white men all laugh and ignore him as he quotes, verbatim, large sections of Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Exposition Address. Amid the amused, drunken requests that he repeat the phrase "social responsibility," the narrator accidentally says "social equality." The white men angrily demand that he explain himself. He responds that he made a mistake, and finishes his speech to uproarious applause. The men award him a calfskin briefcase and instruct him to cherish it, telling him that one day its contents will help determine the fate of his people. Inside, to his utter joy, the narrator finds a scholarship to the state college for black youth. His happiness doesn't diminish when he later discovers that the gold coins from the electrified rug are actually worthless brass tokens. That night, the narrator has a dream of going to a circus with his grandfather, who refuses to laugh at the clowns. His grandfather instructs him to open the briefcase. Inside the narrator finds an official envelope with a state seal. He opens it only to find another envelope, itself containing another envelope. The last one contains an engraved document reading: "To Whom It May Concern . . . Keep This ******-Boy Running." The narrator wakes with his grandfather's laughter ringing in his ears.

chapter 20-21

The narrator visits a bar, one of his old Harlem haunts. He recognizes two men who have attended some of his speeches and addresses them as "brother." They react with hostility. He learns that many of the jobs that the Brotherhood procured for Harlem residents have disappeared. These men themselves have left the organization. Some men accuse the narrator of getting "white fever" when he moved to lecture downtown. He returns to his old office to look for Brother Tarp but fails to find anyone in the building. He discovers that Harlem membership in the Brotherhood has declined due to a change in the Brotherhood's emphasis from local issues to national and international concerns. The narrator waits to be called to the strategy meeting that Brother Jack mentioned, but the call never comes. He hurries to headquarters anyway and finds the meeting already in progress. The narrator realizes that the other members intended to exclude him all along. Furious, he leaves the building and goes to shop for shoes. He spots Tod Clifton peddling "Sambo" dolls in the street. (The American stereotype of "Sambo" dates back to the time of slavery, denoting a docile but irresponsible, loyal but lazy slave.) Clifton sings out a jingle while the dolls dance in a loose-limbed motion. The narrator feels betrayed. Clifton sees some white police officers coming toward him and sweeps up his Sambo dolls, hastening around the corner. Apparently Clifton knows that he is not allowed to sell his dolls on the street. Clifton bids the audience that had gathered to watch his display to follow him. The narrator spots one of the dolls left behind and begins to crush it with his foot. Seeing one of the policemen nearby, however, he picks up the doll and puts it in his briefcase. He begins walking away, but as he comes around another corner he sees a huge crowd gathered. Clifton stands in the midst of it, flanked by policemen. The narrator then sees Clifton strike one of the officers, and the officer draws his gun and shoots Clifton dead. Summary: Chapter 21 The narrator returns to Harlem in a stunned daze, haunted by the memory of Clifton's death and of the black doll. Once he reaches his office, he tries to make the doll dance. He finally realizes that Clifton was manipulating it with a black string attached to its back. He stares at the doll until someone knocks at his door. A group of weeping young Brotherhood members asks him if Clifton is dead. The narrator confirms the story. He then tries to call the headquarters for instructions but receives no answer. He rallies the members in his building to stage a funeral march for Clifton and sends some women to claim the body from the morgue. He notifies the community churches of the funeral and publicizes Clifton's untimely, unnecessary death. When the march takes place two days later, the community is stirred and angry. Hundreds of former members of the Brotherhood show up to march. The narrator delivers a sobering speech to the audience. Once the speech is over, the narrator senses a heavy tension in the crowd. He hopes that members of the Brotherhood will harness that tension and recover their influence in the Harlem community

chapter 11

The narrator wakes in a hospital to see a man—a doctor—with what appears to be a bright third eye glowing in the center of his forehead. The narrator finds himself wearing a white pair of overalls. The doctor gives him something to swallow, and he loses consciousness again. Later, he wakes on a cot to see the third eye burning into his own eye. The doctor asks him for his name, but the narrator can only think about his pain. The "pink-faced" doctors begin using electrical shock treatment on him. The narrator cannot remember why he is in the hospital. He hears machines humming in the background and music that sounds like the cry of a woman in pain. The doctors argue about how to proceed with the narrator: one wants to continue with the electrical shocks, while another believes that such means are rather primitive and argues that they wouldn't use electrical shocks on someone with a Harvard or New England background. The first doctor declares that electric shock will have the effect of a lobotomy (a surgical procedure that involves severing nerve fibers in the brain to alleviate certain mental disorders) and adds that both the narrator and society will be the better for this procedure. Someone suggests castration, but the doctor in charge chooses to continue with the electric shocks. As the shocks hit the narrator, someone muses that he is dancing, noting that "they [black people] really do have rhythm." The doctors ask the narrator a question, but he cannot understand the words. They write their question down on a card: what is your name? The narrator realizes that he cannot remember his name. The doctors barrage him with other written questions relating to his identity, but the narrator can respond with only a mute stare. Asked his mother's name, he can think only that a mother is "one who screams when you suffer," and again he hears the screams of the hospital machines. The doctors then write: who was buckeye the rabbit? The narrator thinks in confused, angry amusement that he is Buckeye the Rabbit, and he becomes annoyed to think that the doctor has hit upon his old identity. The doctors ask: boy, who was brer rabbit? The narrator thinks sarcastically, "He was your mother's backdoor man." He adds that Brer and Buckeye are "one and the same: 'Buckeye' when you were very young and . . . innocent . . . 'Brer,' when you were older." The narrator learns that he is in the factory hospital. The doctors tell him that he is cured and should dress and sign some papers in order to receive his compensation check. The director of the hospital urges him to find a quieter, easier job, since he is not ready for the difficulties of factory work. The narrator asks whether the director knows Mr. Norton or Dr. Bledsoe, joking that they are old friends of his. The narrator leaves the hospital feeling as though an "alien personality" has taken hold of him. Roaming around in a trancelike stupor, he realizes that he has overcome his fear of important men like the trustees and Bledsoe. He wanders into the subway and sees a platinum blonde woman biting a red apple as the train heads for Harlem.