Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison
Study Questions
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
Honors American Literature
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Name___________________
GUIDED DISCUSSION: Chapters 1 and 2 (pp. 15-70)
Due: January 30th
As you read Invisible Man, you will see that Ralph Ellison uses many of the devices
available to the satirist—satire, irony, parody, sarcasm, understatement, hyperbole, and
caricature. What may seem to be a simple story has a second layer of meaning that
reveals the author’s real concerns.
A Handbook to Literature gives an expanded definition of irony that may be helpful.
Irony is likely to be confused with sarcasm, but it differs from sarcasm in that it is
usually less harsh. Its presence may be marked by a sort of grim humor and
“unemotional detachment,” a coolness in expression at a time when one’s emotions
appear to be really heated. Characteristically it speaks words of praise to imply
blame and words of blame to imply praise. Irony applies not only to statement but
also to event, situation, and structure. (Holman and Harmon 254-5)
1. The narrator recalls the death of his grandfather and the strange statement he made
just before he died. What did the narrator learn from his grandfather’s talking about
yessing people? Why did the grandfather refer to himself as a traitor?
2. Who was Booker T. Washington? What relationship does the narrator feel to him?
3. How is each of the following an example of satire in speech, event, or situation?
Label the satirical device Ellison uses.
a.
the men’s comments “Bring up the little shines” and “That’s right, Sambo.”
b. the nude dancer with the American flag tattooed on her stomach
c.
the blindfolds
d. the men’s behavior and language
4. What is the significance of the school superintendent’s presence at the Battle Royal?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
5. When the narrator begins to speak, he quotes from one whom he calls “that great
leader and educator.” Read the citation he makes and explain what it is really saying
about black people. What satirical device has Ellison used?
6. When the narrator gets mixed up and says “social equality,” he must immediately
correct his error. What is the significance of the exchange between the speaker and the
audience?
7. “I was swallowing blood” seems a simple explanation for his being misunderstood.
What is the author implying on a deeper level than the simple statement?
8. Comment on the significance of the superintendent’s words as he presents the
briefcase to the narrator.
“Boy,” he said, addressing me, “take this prize and keep it well. Consider it a
badge of office. Prize it. Keep developing as you are and some day it will be
filled with important papers that will help shape the destiny of your people.”
9. Comment on the significance of the gold coins actually being “brass pocket tokens
advertising a certain make of automobile.”
10. What might be foreshadowed by the dream the narrator has about going to the circus
with his grandfather?
Chapter 2 is filled with contrasts in the physical environment and in the people whom the
narrator encounters. Keep in mind the author’s satirical purpose as you answer the
following.
11. Describe the following.
a.
the campus
b. the surrounding country
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
c.
things one hears on campus
d. things one hears off campus
12. At first the narrator sees the campus as a veritable Garden of Eden. Find three things
that really don’t fit an ideal situation.
13. What problems does the narrator reveal by these observations?
14. What is ironic about the narrator’s view of the Founder’s statue?
15. How does “Oh, oh, oh, those multimillionaires!” fit the ambivalence the narrator
seems to feel?
16. Use the following topics to briefly describe each character.
Topic
Mr. Norton
Jim Trueblood
a. physical
appearance
b. mission in
life
c. feelings
about daughter
d. provisions
for family
e. apparent
importance
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
17. Why do you think Norton does not notice the ragged man dozing in his wagon at the
side of the road?
18. In satirical writing, names are often important. Why do you think Ellison names the
sharecropper Trueblood?
19. How does the following quotation reveal the distance between Mr. Norton and
Trueblood? How is it an example of a satirist’s use of grim humor? Explain.
“You have looked upon chaos and are not destroyed!”
“No suh! I feels all right.”
“You do? You feel no inner turmoil, no need to cast out the offending eye?”
“Suh?”
“Answer me!”
“I’m all right, suh,” Trueblood said uneasily. “My eyes is all right too. And when I
feels po’ly in my gut I takes a little soda and it goes away.”
20. In what ways in Mr. Norton like the men of Greenwood who attended the battle
royal?
21. How does the hundred-dollar gift fit with Mr. Norton’s “first-hand organizing of
human life”?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
Honors American Literature
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Name___________________
GUIDED DISCUSSION: Chapters 3-5, Invisible Man (pp. 71-135)
Due: February 6th
1.
Some critics feel that Ralph Ellison uses the name Golden Day satirically. What is
ironic about its use in Chapter 3?
2.
One demented veteran thinks Norton is Thomas Jefferson, his grandfather. What facts
about Thomas Jefferson might Ellison have had in mind? What is the significance of
alluding to Thomas Jefferson at this particular moment in the story?
3.
Notice that among the veterans are a doctor and a chemist who each earned a Phi Beta
Kappa key. What is the significance of the level of education and intelligence these men
represent?
4.
The narrator comments about the doctor: “The vet was acting toward white men with a
freedom which could only bring on trouble.” In the second paragraph of Chapter 4 he
begins, “I wanted to stop the car and talk to Mr. Norton....” Then the narrator explains
what he would say. What do the two passages tell you about the education and mindset
of the narrator?
5.
The doctor says to Norton and the narrator:
“Poor stumblers, neither of you can see the other. To you he is a mark on the scorecard
of your achievement, a thing and not a man; a child or even less—a black amorphous
thing. And you, for all your power, are not a man to him, but a God, a force—”
What is the doctor trying to tell them and us about invisibility between individuals
of different races or ages?
6.
Early in Chapter 4 the narrator refuses to think of Dr. Bledsoe as “Old Bucket-head.”
What does the narrator reveal about the black dream? Is it different from the white
dream?
7.
Bledsoe scolds the narrator for taking Norton to places black people wouldn’t want a
white person to see. Then Bledsoe tells Norton that he will severely discipline the young
man and that one can’t “be soft with these people.” What do these details reveal about
Bledsoe?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
8.
Toward the end of Chapter 4 we read of Bledsoe’s manners toward white people,
beginning with, “Hadn’t I seen him approach white visitors?” What is revealed about
Bledsoe’s use of power?
9.
In paragraph 4 of Chapter 5, the narrator describes the chapel scene. What does he
conclude is the student’s attitude toward this chapel service? toward their own black
services and sermons?
10.
The next paragraph speaks of the “black rite of Horatio Alger.” Who is Horatio Alger?
How does this description apply to the students?
11.
Read the prose poem located after paragraph 7 of Chapter 5. It gives the narrator’s
thoughts as he sits waiting for the service to begin, remembering when he has spoken to
the student body from that podium. What does it mean?
12.
The narrator tells how Bledsoe first came tot he campus. This is an excellent example
of using praise to imply blame as he says that Bledsoe “had made himself the best slop
dispenser in the history of the school.” What is the blame the narrator unwittingly has
voiced?
13.
What ability does Homer A. Barbee display as he speaks? What does hi speech lack?
What is the significance of the revelation that he is blind?
14.
Notice that “a mockingbird trilled a note from where it perched upon the hand of the
moonlit Founder, flipping its mood-mad tail above the head of the eternally kneeling
slave.” What is important about this sight in light of the chapel service that has just
ended?
15.
Considering what the narrator has just heard and seen, what is the meaning of the
following sentence? “With such words fresh in his mind, I was sure Dr. Bledsoe would
be far less sympathetic to my plea.”
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
Honors American Literature
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Name___________________
GUIDED DISCUSSION: Chapters 6-7
Due: February 13th
1.
2.
Reread Dr. Bledsoe’s diatribe against the narrator, found at the beginning of Chapter 6.
What does it reveal about Bledsoe personally? about his care for the students? about the
driving force of his life? what he considers the greatest humiliation? what he will do to
stay in power?
What appears to be the narrator’s greatest humiliation in this interview?
3.
What early message from a relative of the narrator foreshadowed Bledsoe’s remark,
“Boy, I’m getting rid of you!”?
4.
What is your reaction when you hear Bledsoe saying, “I’ll give you letters to some of
the school’s friends to see that you get work?
5.
At the beginning of Chapter 7, the narrator encounters the veteran doctor on the bus,
who tells the narrator that he really is invisible. What advice does the doctor give him?
6.
What is the significance of the snake (i.e., “moccasin”) crawling into the iron pipe at
the side of the road?
7.
What is the narrator’s resolve as he strikes out for a new life? What has he not yet
learned?
8.
9.
The narrator speaks of his “prize brief case.” Why is it of such value to him?
What new roles does the narrator see for black people in New York that he has never
observed in the South?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
10.
In the prologue, there was a brief reference to Ras (pronounce it with a long a). What
is Ras shouting about when the narrator sees him in New York? What reaction does the
narrator express about what he hears? What does the narrator mean when he says, “I
would have to take Harlem a little at a time”?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
Honors American Literature
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Name___________________
GUIDED DISCUSSION: Chapters 8-10
Due: February 20th
1. We see that the narrator still believes in the Horatio Alger stories about success. Find
three or four pieces of evidence that show how optimistic he is about getting a job in New
York.
2. As the narrator daydreams about success, what does he visualize about his future?
Why doesn’t he intend to stay in New York very long?
3. Two things reinforce the theme of the narrator’s invisibility. What are they?
4. The narrator begins to doubt that the secretaries have actually delivered his letters to
the executives. What action does he take to insure that at least one letter will reach the
person?
5. Once again, the narrator dreams of his grandfather. What truth does that dream give
to him?
6. Look up jive in a dictionary. What does it include? What does “You’re jivin’ me”
mean?
7. What is the narrator reminded of when he meets the jiver? What is his reaction to
this reminder?
8. The jiver’s name is Peter Wheatstraw, a blues singer in a black folk song. Jack the
Rabbit and Jack the Bear are probably Brer Rabbit and Brer Bear from Joel Chandler
Harris’ stories. Collect information about Harris’ work, especially who outwitted whom.
Where in the novel have you heard of Jack the Bear before?
9. What is the meaning of the blueprints? What doubts does the encounter raise for the
narrator?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
10. What is the narrator really denying when he doesn’t order grits and pork chops?
What is he pretending?
11. How do we know that the narrator’s naive optimism continues as he goes to see Mr.
Emerson?
12. What does the young Emerson mean when he says, “They’re all loyal Americans”?
What is satirical about that remark?
13. What did the narrator’s grandfather mean when he said, “Don’t let no white man tell
you his business, ‘cause after he tells you he’s liable to git shame he tole it to you and
then he’ll hate you. Fact is, he was hating you all the time”? Is that true, or was his
grandfather paranoid?
14. What does young Emerson mean when he says, “I’m Huckleberry”?
15. What is the significance of young Emerson’s catching himself when he says, “Some
of the finest people I know are Neg...”?
16. Read the last sentence of Dr. Bledsoe’s letter. What did he really mean? Is it
something you’ve read in the novel before?
17. How does the Robin tune apply to the narrator? How is his experience with the New
York executives like the earlier experience in the battle royal?
18. What is the underlying meaning of the motto the narrator sees as he comes through
the fog?
19. The plant produces paint for the government and uses a screaming eagle as a
trademark. What is the significance of those facts?
20. What odd ingredient is necessary in a small amount to create Optic White? How
does that fit the title and one of the themes of the book? What is the significance between
what Mr. Kimbro sees in the color and what the narrator sees? What might it mean?
21. How is the narrator’s dismissal from his job similar to his expulsion from school?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
22. Lucius Brockway, the black supervisor to whom the narrator is transferred, is a
strange person. Considering the location of his workroom and his appearance, whom
does he resemble?
23. What is the importance of Brockway’s job? Considering whom he resembles, what is
the author saying about the origin of Optic White?
24. What is the significance of the narrator’s reading the slogan “If It’s Optic White, It’s
the Right White” and his interpreting it as “If you’re white, you’re right”?
25. Notice the name the union members apply to the narrator when he enters their
meeting and the name they use when they find out where he works. What is important
about the difference?
26. When Brockway threatens to kill the narrator, the young man remembers what he had
been previously taught about treating his elders. What do his thoughts reveal about the
treatment of young men in black society? What reason may have been behind that kind
of treatment?
27. As the narrator recalls the feeling that he is falling in space after the explosion, he
says, “My head pressed back against a huge wheel.” What might the author intend by the
wheel? How does the image fit the theme?
28. Tie together what the narrator was taught about treating his elders and his reaction to
Brockway’s threat, what Brockway represents, and the fact that the young man is
involved in an explosion.
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
Honors American Literature
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Name___________________
GUIDED DISCUSSION: Chapters 11-13
Due: February 27th
Until this point in the story, the narrator has done little questioning of his identity.
First he allowed his identity to be determined by the people of Greenwood, then by the
personnel of the college. Even after he was sent to New York, he was dependent on Dr.
Bledsoe for what he thought would be recommendations for work; next, he relied on
Kimbro and Brockway for guidance at the Liberty Paint factory. After the explosion at
the factory, he was subjected to a treatment that involved electric shock, a replacement
for frontal lobotomy surgery used on mental patients to make them less violent and more
tractable. At the beginning of Chapter 11, the narrator is being treated and experiencing
confusion about the result. Through his somewhat delirious thoughts, he comes to the
conclusion that if he can discover who he is, he will be free. Thus begins the process of
his individual search for identity.
1. Note the use of hot and cold images in the first few pages of Chapter 11. What might
the author be trying to communicate through them?
2. From the Prologue on, Ellison has used references to music. What musical
references are included in this chapter? What is their effect on you, the reader?
3. What memories does the narrator recall as he’s trying to speak with the doctor? Is
there a common thread in these memories? What is your interpretation of the rhymes the
narrator recalls?
4. What does the doctor’s confidence in his “little machine,” his “little gadget,” say
about our modern society?
5. What are the results the doctor expects to get from the treatment? What do his hopes
reveal about how our society deals with independent-minded, “meddlesome” individuals?
6. Explain the definition of a surgeon mentioned in the text (top of p. 237). Is there any
relevance to the comment?
7. What is the significance of the following quotation: “It would be more scientific to
try to define the case. It has been developing some three hundred years”?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
8. How are the narrator’s stay in the hospital and the battle royal alike?
9. What stereotypes about blacks are voiced during the narrator’s treatment? What is
the impact of stereotyping as it relates to individuality?
10. Why is it important that the narrator remembers Buckeye the Rabbit and Brer Rabbit?
11. Explain the importance of the narrator’s statement, “When I discover who I am, I’ll
be free” (243).
12. As the narrator’s awaiting his release from the factory hospital, what signs indicate
his bewildered state?
13. Explain the narrator’s thoughts: “...I was in the grip of some alien personality lodged
deep within me...Or perhaps I was catching up with myself...I was no longer afraid.”
14. What does the narrator see across the aisle as he sits in the subway car? Could this be
part of a motif?
After his discharge from the hospital, the narrator has ceased to be the direct victim of
the forces of American capitalism (i.e., Liberty Paint), but he is far from knowing his true
identity and is not strong enough to prevent future victimization. He needs some time to
recuperate and loving care to gain some feeling of self-worth. The mother figure, Mary
Rambo, finds him and cares for him after his release from the hospital until he is strong
enough to cope with the city and his place in it. From the shelter of Mary’s home, he
makes forays into the streets of the city and makes many discoveries.
15. List concrete details that reinforce Mary Rambo’s role as a mother figure.
16. Explain Mary’s words as remembered by the narrator: “If I don’t think I’m sinking,
look what a hole I’m in.”
17. How does Mary know that the narrator had been hospitalized? Is his paranoia about
her knowing such information justified?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
18. Explain the narrator’s comment: “The lobby was the meeting place for various groups
still caught up in the illusions that had just been boomeranged out of my head... I now felt
a contempt such as only a disillusioned dreamer feels for those still unaware that they
dream...” (256).
19. What does the narrator do the Baptist preacher he mistakes for Bledsoe? How are his
actions in line with the metaphor of “the ice melting to form a flood”?
20. Explain the narrator’s ambivalent feelings about Mary Rambo expressed at the end of
Chapter 12.
21. Note again the shift from black/white imagery to hot/cold imagery.
22. What makes the narrator want to put his fist through a store-front window? Is this
more of “the ice melting to form a flood”?
23. In the first part of Chapter 13, the author makes a number of references to various
foods, foods you may not be familiar with—hog maw, yams (sweet potatoes), chitterlings
(pronounced “chitlins”), mustard greens, pigs’ ears, black-eyed peas. What significance
is attached to these foods and why would eating them give the narrator a sense of
freedom?
24. The yam seller says to the narrator, “You right, but everything what looks good ain’t
necessarily good.” Ironic?
25. The narrator fantasizes about humiliating Dr. Bledsoe. Why would confronting
Bledsoe with the fact that he enjoys eating chitterlings be humiliating?
26. Consider the narrator’s words to the yam seller—“I yam what I am!” Why is this a
turning point?
27. Think about what the narrator thinks as he walks away with his yams: “What and
how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I
myself had wished to do?”
28. After leaving the yam seller, the narrator comes upon an old couple being evicted.
What is significant about the narrator saying, “I am who I am. Just don’t beat up your
gums at me”?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
29. What effect do the Provo’s belongings have on the narrator?
30. What technique does the narrator use in his speech? What effect does the speech
have on the people gathered outside the Provo’s apartment?
31. Describe the white people who help the crowd move the Provo’s belongings from the
street back into their apartment.
32. Take note of the words paddie, ofay, and scobo (I spent two hours online trying to
find out what this word means!).
33. Who was the man the narrator thought was following him across the rooftops? What
is peculiar about his choice of words when conversing with the narrator? Have you seen
his type of offer before in the novel?
34. What is Brother Jack’s philosophy? Does it conflict with the narrator’s?
35. With all the focus on food in Chapter 13, is it ironic that Brother Jack serves the
narrator a slice of cheesecake, something he’s never tasted before?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
Honors American Literature
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Name___________________
GUIDED DISCUSSION: Chapters 14-16 (pp. 296-355)
Due: March 6th
Chapter 14
1.
Note the odor of cabbage. What does it represent to the narrator? What is his
reaction to it? Does this betray his acceptance of “soul food” in Chapter 12? What
connection exists between the odor and his making the call to Brother Jack?
2.
What physical description of Brother Jack is repeated several times in the chapter?
What is the significance, politically, of the color red, especially in the 30s and 40s?
Describe his temperament.
3.
Note the narrator’s mentioning of the Central Park Zoo. What is interesting about the
comment’s placement in the narrative?
4.
5.
Look up the word chthonian. What does it mean and is it significant?
On page 300, the narrator says that he has an “uncanny sense of familiarity” about the
situation, something he repeats a number of times. Where is he? What would be
familiar?
6.
Note the owl-shaped knocker on the door of the apartment? Significance?
7.
Describe Emma and the narrator’s reaction to her.
8.
9.
10.
What liquor does the narrator choose to drink? What kind of liquor does the
Brotherhood use later in their toast of the narrator? Significance?
What kinds of words are used by the Brotherhood? What is their political relevance?
What is the irony of the Brotherhood’s crowning of the narrator as the new Booker T.
Washington?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
11.
Note that the narrator receives a new name. Why can’t he choose his own name?
What is the legacy of naming that stems from slavery?
12.
A drunken member of the Brotherhood asks the narrator to sing a spiritual and/or a
working song. Describe the varied reactions of those present at the party. What conflict
does the narrator feel as a result?
13.
On page 316, the narrator criticizes Mary’s use of the word we. What is ironic about
his criticism?
Chapter 15
14.
Describe the penny bank. What logo is imprinted on one of the pieces the narrator
picks up? Could the bank be symbolic of the narrator and his motives for joining the
Brotherhood?
15.
Track the narrator’s attempts to get rid of the penny bank. Each time he tries to get
rid of it, what do people assume about him? Where does he finally put the broken bank?
16.
Note his new clothes and his new home. Does this complete his transformation as a
new man of the Brotherhood? Is his “transformation” any different that the one he made
when going to college?
Chapter 16
17.
Describe the photo the narrator sees tacked to the wall. Again, we see the theme of
blindness. What, if anything, does the man in the photo have to do with the narrator?
18.
On page 335, the narrator speaks of having to divide himself into two parts. Which
part must be suppressed?
19.
What is the narrator’s reaction to the syphilitic beggar?
Note the “three white men and three black horses.” Is this symbolic of the
Brotherhood?
21.
Describe the narrator’s memory of Master, the bulldog. Note the description is
followed quickly by a description of Brother Jack.
20.
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
22.
The first song the narrator hears at the rally is “John Brown’s Body.” Check out the
web site for more info.
23.
When the narrator steps to the microphone, what is his reaction?
24.
Note the various reactions to the narrator’s speech.
25.
What are Brother Jack’s plans for the narrator? How does he feel about them?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
Honors American Literature
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Name___________________
GUIDED DISCUSSION: Chapters 17-18 (pp. 356-408)
Due: March 20th
1.
Although it seems that the narrator is open to being part of the Brotherhood, there are
clues that he has some suspicions about the organization and Brother Jack. List the
evidence you find in the first few pages of Chapter 17 (up to the break in the text at
which point Tod Clifton is introduced).
2.
One night Tod and the narrator get into a fight with Ras, who will not kill one of his
fellow black persons. After the fight, Ras gives the two young men some warnings about
the Brotherhood. What are they?
3.
Later, Tod says that Ras is dangerous. Explain why he feels that way and what he
means by “sometimes a man has to plunge outside history.”
4.
Why is it so easy for the narrator to get the cooperation of the community leaders?
Which leader amuses him? Why?
5.
One, the narrator had hoped to be a second Booker T. Washington. Thanks to
Brother Tarp’s picture, the narrator changes his mind. Why has Frederick Douglass
become his new role model?
6.
What do the last three sentences of Chapter 17 reveal about the philosophical position
the narrator has adopted? What change has taken place in his thinking since the end of
Chapter 16?
7.
Why is the letter that narrator finds at the beginning of Chapter 18 so unsettling?
8.
Notice that the narrator seems to see his grandfather looking from Tarp’s eyes.
Linking that impression to the dream the narrator had of his grandfather back in Chapter
1, what insight can a reader gain into why the letter was written?
9.
Tarp reassures the narrator that the Brotherhood approves of him. Tarp cites as proof
the changed view the organization has shown toward the Rainbow poster. What does its
reaction to the poster tell us about the Brotherhood?
10.
What is revealed about society in the nineteen-year experience of Brother Tarp? Why
was he able to gain his freedom? What will always be true of his life?
11.
After he talks to Tarp, the narrator says, “He had restored my perspective.” Explain
what he means.
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
12.
What does the following thought reveal about the narrator? “No, it wasn’t me he was
worried about becoming too big, it was the Brotherhood.”
13.
Why does Wrestrum fear Tarp’s chain so much? What does he say he does to guard
his thinking?
14.
What is so ironic about the accusation Wrestrum makes to the Brotherhood about the
narrator?
15.
The leaders seem preoccupied with enemies and the safety of their organization.
What is the narrator’s reaction to their fear?
16.
Near the end of Chapter 18, the narrator remarks that he is beginning to approach
depths of the Brotherhood that he had never been told about. What clue does that give
the reader about the true nature of the organization?
17.
Immediately the narrator determines once again to work his way to the top of the
Brotherhood. What does this decision reveal about him?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
Honors American Literature
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Name___________________
GUIDED DISCUSSION: Chapters 19-21 (pp. 409-461)
Due: March 20th
1.
Who was Paul Robeson? What is significant about linking him with the narrator?
2.
The woman who invites the narrator to her apartment says, “Women should be
absolutely as free as men.” Considering the number of verbal and physical clues, what
should the narrator have suspected?
3.
While she talks on the phone he thinks of “forgotten stories of male servants.” Why
is this significant? What does he mean when he ends with, “But this is the movement,
the Brotherhood”?
4.
When the husband comes in, he doesn’t seem surprised; but when the narrator thinks
about the incident, he toys with Tarp’s leg chain. What does the linking of the two things
mean?
5.
Tod Clifton’s disappearance motivates the leaders to send the narrator back to
Harlem. How does it fit the pattern of this segment of the story? What question remains
about the reason why he was being sent downtown to lecture on the Woman Question?
6.
What are two clues that the Brotherhood had abandoned its work in Harlem?
7.
What is the apparent reason that Brother Tarp has left the office?
8.
What are the new issues with which the Brotherhood is now concerned?
9.
Describe Tod Clifton’s dolls. How are they made to dance?
10.
11.
The dolls are a caricature of the black man in a white world. What is satirical abou
the name Tod gives the dolls? the two-sided, grinning faces? the price Tod asks? the line,
“The sunshine of your lordly smile”?
What is the reaction of the narrator? Why does he act as he does?
12.
Remembering the Battle Royal when someone shouted “Sambo” at the boys and the
comments the infirmary doctor made about the narrator’s dancing during the shock
therapy, what doe Tod’s dancing dolls represent?
13.
Considering that Brother Jack said history had passed by the old evicted couple and
then that history had been born in the narrator’s brain when he spoke at the eviction, how
do you interpret the idea that Tod has “plunged outside history,” as Ras had said some
people must do?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
14.
Does the policeman’s treatment of Tod Clifton seem stereotypical? Explain.
15.
Describe the features of the zoot suit. The narrator, seeing the young men in zoot
suits, calls them “men outside of historical time.” What might he mean?
16.
What does he mean when he says that those young men, like Tod, are “running and
dodging the forces of history instead of making a dominating stand”?
17.
How doe the people on the sidewalk respond to the store owner chasing the boys who
stole candy from the Five and Ten? Why does the narrator feel guilty?
18.
Look up the German meaning of Tod. What is the name’s significance in the context
of this story?
19.
What is the double meaning of the sign, “BROTHER TOD CLIFTON, OUR HOPE
SHOT DOWN”?
20.
What does the narrator learn about the power of the district committee that the
Brotherhood had once asked him to organize?
21.
List activities that show the narrator has the ability to mobilize the residents of
Harlem.
22.
Interpret the following comment from the narrator, “The political equivalent of such
entertainment is death.”
23.
What does the narrator learn about the dilemma he is in?
24.
What does the narrator say is the real reason that Tod Clifton had to die?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
Honors American Literature
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Name___________________
STUDY QUESTIONS: Chapters 22-23 (pp. 462-512)
Due: March 27th
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
What reason does Brother Jack give for having hired the narrator?
Why does Tobitt think that he understands how black people feel? Whom might Ralph
Ellison be satirizing?
What remark by Brother Jack shows that he believes in white supremacy?
As the narrator looks at Brother Jack after all that has happened, what does he notice
about him? What have Brother Jack’s remarks and actions shown him to be?
Compare Brother Jack to Homer Barbee, the reverend who spoke at the college chapel.
What does the narrator mean when he says, “Some of me, too, had died with Tod
Clifton”?
Ras the Exhorter is becoming Ras the Destroyer, who sends his thugs out after the
narrator. To Ras, the narrator is the personification of the Brotherhood and must be
destroyed after abandoning Harlem. In his run from Ras’ thugs, the narrator becomes
acquainted with an elusive figure who has learned to work the system to his own
advantage at the expense of everyone else.
7.
After having encountered Ras and his thugs, how does the narrator make his escape?
8.
Who do several people mistake the narrator to be?
9.
Why does the narrator buy a hat?
10.
What does the narrator learn about Rinehart through the following encounters?
a.
Brother Maceo
b.
the woman who asks him, “What’s the final figger?”
c.
the police officers who stop him
d.
the men who run out of the pool hall
e.
the girl who slips money into his pocket
f.
the handbills passed out by two solemn-faced children
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
g.
the two old ladies
11.
What does the narrator mean when he wonders if the man is both “rind and heart”?
12.
The narrator muses that “outside the Brotherhood we were outside history; but inside of
it they didn’t see us.” What does he mean?
13.
What does the narrator learn from Hambro about his personal usefulness to the
Brotherhood? What does sacrifice mean to the organization?
14.
What does the narrator mean when he says, “I’ll have to do a Rinehart”?
15.
The narrator comments that he thought the Brotherhood felt his being black made no
difference, but he now knows that in reality “it made no difference because they didn’t
see either color or man.” Explain what he is saying that he has learned.
16.
What action will he take toward the Brotherhood to covertly work for the people of
Harlem?
At the end of Chapter 23, the narrator asks himself how Rinehart would get information
about the inner workings of the Brotherhood. The narrator then decides he will find some
woman close to one of the leaders, someone who could be made to spill out the secrets
the men have been withholding from him. He initially thinks that he can target Emma,
Jack’s mistress. At the beginning of Chapter 24, however, he discovers that he can’t use
Emma for she is too sophisticated; instead, he chooses Sybil because she can be plied
with drink and will respond to attention, since she is apparently unaccustomed to getting
much from her husband. The encounter becomes another of Ralph Ellison’s ironic twists.
17.
To help make the irony clearer, think about the word sibyl (notice the different
spelling). What is a sibyl?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
Quizzes for Invisible Man
Quiz #1
pp. 3-135
Prologue-Chapter 5
Quiz #2
pp. 136-250
Chapter 6-Chapter 11
Quiz #3
pp. 251-408
Chapter 12-Chapter 18
Quiz #4
pp. 409-581
Chapter 19-Epilogue
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
Folk and Literary Allusions

Peter Wheatstraw...scroll down until you reach the letter Ellison wrote the article’s
author.
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99jul/9907ellison.htm

Peetie Wheatstraw...blues musician/vocalist.
http://www.baddogblues.com/archives/2.02/essential.htm


Joel Chandler Harris and Uncle Remus
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/contents.html
http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl311/harris.htm


Horatio Alger
http://www.ihot.com/~has/
http://www.classicreader.com/author.php/aut.159/

Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393001431/103-64284804975064?v=glance

calamus
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=calamus


Poor Robin
http://www.smsu.edu/folksong/maxhunter/0857/
http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/pages/tiPICKROBN.html
Marcus Garvey




http://www.boomshaka.com/garvey.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/garvey/
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAgarvey.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/garvey_marcus.shtml
soul food

http://www.foxhome.com/soulfood/htmls/soulfood.html

Communism in America
http://www.cpusa.org/

“John Brown’s Body”
http://www.contemplator.com/folk2/johnbrown.html
http://johnbrownsbody.net/
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
(What Did I Do To Be So) Black and Blue
Words by Andy Razaf and Music by Thomas “Fats” Waller and Harry Brooks
Copyright ©1929 Santly Brothers, Inc. and renewed by Chappell & Co., Inc.
Cold, empty bed.
Springs hard as lead.
Feel like old Ned.
Wished I was dead.
What did I do
To be so black and blue?
Even the mouse
Ran from my house.
They laugh at you,
And scorn you, too.
What did I do
To be so black and blue?
I'm white inside,
But that don't help my case,
’Cause I can’t hide
What is in my face, oh!
How will it end?
Ain’t got a friend.
My only sin
Is in my skin.
What did I do
To be so black and blue?
How will it end?
Ain’t got a friend.
My only sin
Is in my skin.
What did I do
To be so black and blue?
(Additional Lyrics)
I’m white inside.
It don't help my case,
’Cause I can't hide
What is on my face, oh!
I’m so forlorn.
Life’s just a thorn.
My heart is torn.
Why was I born?
What did I do
To be so black and blue?
‘Cause you’re black,
Folks think you lack.
They laugh at you,
And scorn you, too.
What did I do
To be so black and blue?
When you are near,
They laugh and sneer,
Set you aside,
And you’re denied.
What did I do
To be so black and blue?
How sad I am.
Each day I feel worse.
My mark of Ham
Seems to be a curse!
How will it end?
Ain’t got a friend.
My only sin
Is my skin.
What did I do
To be so black and blue?
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
Ralph Ellison, Author of 'Invisible Man,' Is Dead at 80
By RICHARD D. LYONS
© The New York Times Company
Ralph Ellison, whose widely read novel Invisible Man was a stark account of racial
alienation that foreshadowed the attention Americans eventually paid to divisions in their
midst, died yesterday in his apartment on Riverside Drive. He was 80.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his editor, Joe Fox.
Mr. Ellison's seminal novel, Invisible Man, which was written over a seven-year period
and published by Random House in 1952, is a chronicle of a young black man's
awakening to racial discrimination and his battle against the refusal of Americans to see
him apart from his ethnic background, which in turn leads to humiliation and
disillusionment.
Invisible Man has been viewed as one of the most important works of fiction in the 20th
century, has been read by millions, influenced dozens of younger writers and established
Mr. Ellison as one of the major American writers of the 20th century.
Mr. Ellison's short stories, essays, reviews and criticisms also have been widely published
over the years; one collection was printed by Random House in 1964 under the title
Shadow and Act. The second and last collection, Going to the Territory, came out in
1986.
Yet Mr. Ellison's long-awaited second novel proved to be a struggle and has yet to
emerge.
Mr. Fox said yesterday that the second novel “does exist. It is very long, I don't know the
name, but it is not a sequel to Invisible Man.” The book was started in the late 1950's.
The initial work on the book was destroyed in a fire in his home upstate, and that was so
devastating that he did not resume work on it for several years.
“Just recently Ralph told me that I would be getting the book soon, and I know that he
had been working on it every day, but that he was having trouble with what he termed
‘transitions.’”
Mr. Fox said he was unsure whether the reference was to transitions in periods described
in the work, or transitions between the time periods in which they were written, which
have spanned 30 years.
Invisible Man was almost instantly acclaimed as the work of a major new author. It
remained on the best seller lists for 16 weeks and millions of copies have been printed
since its first publication. Invisible Man has been reprinted many times and is a standard
work of American fiction in the nation’s schools and colleges.
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
The book is the story of an unnamed, idealistic young black man growing up in a
segregated community in the South, attending a Negro college and moving to New York
to become involved in civil rights issues only to retreat, amid confusion and violence,
into invisibility.
Hundreds of thousands of readers have felt themselves tingle to the flatly stated passion
of the book's opening lines:
“I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe;
nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and
bone, fiber and liquids -- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible,
understand, simply because people refuse to see me . . .”
And 572 pages later the unnamed narrator was to evolve into the spokesman for all races
when he asks in the book's last line: “Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I
speak for you?”
The author of these now epic lines was born in Oklahoma City. His full name was Ralph
Waldo Ellison, for the essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. Mr. Ellison was the son of Lewis
Ellison, a vendor of ice and coal who died accidentally when the boy was only 3 years
old. He was raised by his mother, Ida, who worked as a domestic. Invisible Man is
dedicated to her and Mr. Ellison attributed his activist streak to a mother who had
recruited black votes for the Socialist Party.
Mr. Ellison began playing the trumpet at age 8, played in his high school band and knew
blues singer Jimmy Rushing and trumpeter Hot Lips Page. Also drawn to writing, Mr.
Ellison was to say later that his early exposure to the works of Ernest Hemingway and
T.S. Eliot impressed him deeply and that he began to connect such writing with his
experiences “within the Negro communities in which I grew up.”
However, his environment was not segregated. Mr. Ellison was to recall years later that,
in the Oklahoma City society of that time, his parents “had many white friends who came
to the house when I was quite small, so that any feelings of distrust I was to develop
toward whites later on were modified by those with whom I had warm relations.”
He studied classical composition at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, which he reached by
riding freight trains. He stayed at Tuskegee from 1933 to 1936, before moving to New
York where he worked with the Federal Writers Project.
During a stay in Harlem during his junior year in college, Mr. Ellison met the poet
Langston Hughes and the novelist Richard Wright, who several years later published
Native Son.
Mr. Wright, 6 years older than Mr. Ellison, became a friend. Mr. Wright encouraged him
to persevere with writing and short stories followed, including, in 1944, “King of the
Bingo Game” and “Flying Home.”
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney
During World War II, Mr. Ellison served in the Merchant Marine as a cook, and became
ill from his ship’s contaminated water supply. At the end of hostilities, he visited a friend
in Vermont and one day typed “I am an invisible man” and the novel started. He recalled
later, however, he didn’t know what those words represented at the start, and had no idea
what had inspired the idea.
Yet the words and the ideas were to strike a resonant chord among the public, but also
among American intellectuals. Over the years such authors as Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph
Heller have credited Mr. Ellison with having influenced them.
Saul Bellow hailed “what a great thing it is when a brilliant individual victory occurs, like
Mr. Ellison’s, proving that a truly heroic quality can exist among our contemporaries . . .
(the tone) is tragicomic, poetic, the tone of the very strongest sort of creative
intelligence.”
Mr. Ellison was to teach creative writing at New York University, while also serving as a
visiting scholar at many other institutions such as the University of Chicago, Rutgers
University and Yale University.
Mr. Ellison is survived by his wife of 48 years, Fanny, and a brother, Herbert of Los
Angeles.
Mr. Fox said a small funeral service would be held early next week and that a memorial
service would be held at a later date.
Irving Howe’s review of Invisible Man for The Nation...an original review from 1952.
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/howe-on-ellison.html
Random House Reading Guide for Invisible Man
http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides/invisible_man.asp
The Aesthetics of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man...if you can make sense of this stuff, let
me know.
http://www.fulmerford.com/strobe/reviews/ellison.html
High School Students’ Web Pages on Invisible Man...interesting.
http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/westspringfieldhs/projects/im98/im98.htm
Invisible Man Bookweb...quite a few links to topics related to the novel.
http://home.tampabay.rr.com/sherrie/iman.htm
© 2002 St. Thomas Aquinas, Tinney