Motif Strand


Occurs in Prologue
While under the influence of the reefer and
Louie Armstrong’s music, Invisible Man
dreams of a black woman in congregation
who tells how she loved her white master but
killed him with poison so her sons wouldn’t
kill him with their knives.
The Reefer Dream

“That night I found my self hearing not
only in time, but in space as well. I not
only entered the music but descended,
like Dante, into its depths” (9).
The Reefer Dream
In this dream he encounters what
slavery was like. He has a
conversation with an old black
woman who he asked to describe this
freedom which she loved so well. The
information that is revealed to him in
this dream demands action, but he
does not yet know what to do.
The Reefer Dream
“So under the spell of the reefer I
discovered a new analytical way of
listening to music. The unheard sounds
came through, and each melodic line
existed of itself, stood out clearly from all
the rest, said its piece, and waited
patiently for the other voices to speak”(89).
Occurs in Chapters 1, 6, 8, 14, 16, 18,
22, 23, and the Epilogue.
 The grandfather told the narrator’s
father to undermine the whites with
“yeses” and “grins” and advised his
family to “agree ’em to death and
destruction” (16).

Grandfather’s Curse
“Son, after I am gone I want you to
keep up the good fight. I never told
you, but our life is a war and I have
been a traitor all of my born days, a
spy in the enemies country ever since I
give up my gun back in the
reconstruction” (16 ).
Chapter 1 Dream
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.
Chapter 1 Dream(cont.)
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 Nigger-Boy Running.” The
narrator wakes with his grandfather’s
laughter ringing in his ears.
Grandfather’s Curse



“It became a constant puzzle which lay
unanswered in the back of my mind” (16).
The grandfather felt like a traitor.
Narrator has a dream in which he goes to a
circus with his grandfather who gives the
narrator a briefcase, which contains a
document that says, “To Whom It May
Concern, Keep This Nigger-Boy Running”
(33).
Grandfather’s Curse

In Chapter 6, the narrator realizes that
Bledsoe uses the same mask of
meekness to deceive powerful white
donors to his advantage, and
recognizes his grandfather’s sentiment
that true treachery lies in the mask of
meekness.
Grandfather’s Curse
In Chapter 8, the narrator dreams of his
grandfather and “awoke depressed”
(170). He felt that Bledsoe and Norton
were scheming against him.
 In Chapter 14, the narrator thinks back
to when his grandfather had to quote
the entire U.S. Constitution “as a test of
his fitness to vote” (315).

Grandfather’s Curse
In Chapter 16, the narrator realized that
he still has a part of him that is like his
grandfather, “the traitor self that always
threatened internal discord” (335).
 In the Epilogue, the narrator struggles
to find the deeper meaning behind his
grandfather’s advice.

Trueblood tells the narrator and Mr.
Norton of a dream that caused him to
have sexual relations with his daughter.
 Mr. Norton became very troubled by
this dream, which led to the incident at
the Golden Day.

Trueblood’s Dream
Trueblood ends up impregnating his
daughter in his sleep. The black people
scold him for his mistake but he receives
help and care from the white men of the
town. This stereotypically symbolizes what
whites think black men are like.
Trueblood’s Dream

“I looked at Mr.. Norton and stood up,
thinking that now was a good time to
leave; but he was listening to Trueblood so
intensely he didn’t see me, and I sat down
again, cursing the farmer silently. To hell
with his dream”(57)!
Trueblood’s Dream Afterwards

Trueblood’s dream of incest leads to:
– Mr. Norton almost dies thus leading
to the Golden Day
– Golden day problems
– Invisible Man’s confrontation with Dr.
Bledsoe
– Invisible Man gets expelled
– Invisible Man forced to New York

In Chapter 5, Homer Barbee addresses
the student body of the college that the
Invisible Man is attending, telling about
the Founder’s vision of the ideal college
for African-Americans.
The Founder’s Dream
“New York! That’s not a place,
it’s a dream. Now all the little
black boys run away to New
York. Your speech will change,
you’ll talk a lot about
‘college’..... You might even
dance with a white girl” (152)!
New York City
New York is supposed to be the
place where young black men are
treated as equals. The Invisible
Man wants to start over and make a
better life for himself.
– Young Emerson lets IM read
recommendation letter from Bledsoe;
finds out that why he can’t get a job.
– Work at paint plant troublesome
– Gets blown up in plant explosion
– Can’t get job after explosion, has no
money.
Dream of Revenge
“When I stopped, gasping for breath, I
decided that I would go back and kill
Bledsoe. Yes, I thought, I owe it to the
race and to myself. I’ll kill him”(194).
 Bledsoe has told each of the addressees
that the IM has earned permanent
expulsion and that Bledsoe had to send
him away under false pretenses in order
to protect the college.

Dream of Revenge(cont.)

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”(191).
Dream of Revenge(cont.)

The Invisible Man 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”(194).

In Chapter 11, the Invisible Man is in
the hospital, due to an accident at the
factory in which he works. His doctors
put him in a clear, coffin-like box.
While he is there, the doctors ask him
his name, where he is from, and who
his mother is. Because of the medicine
the doctors give him for pain his
thoughts were impaired.
The Machine Dream
“I was struggling and
breaking through, rising up,
to find myself lying on my
back with two pink-faced
men laughing down” (232).
The Dream Book

In Chapters 13, 15 and 17, references
are made to The Seeing Eye, The Great
Constitutional Dream Book, The Secrets
of Africa, and The Wisdom of Egypt.
The Invisible Man learns about dream
books, where men actually record their
dreams in a journal. Some men
believed that their dreams had a true
significance.

“I lay the prisoner of a group consisting of
Jack and old Emerson and Bledsoe and
Norton and Ras and the school
superintendent and a number of others
whom I failed to recognize, but all of whom
had run me, who now pressed around me
as I lay beside a river of black water, near
where an armored bridge arched sharply
away to where I could not see”(567).
Chapter 25

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.”
Jack, Norton, and Emerson
“And now I looked around a
corner of my mind and saw
Jack and Norton and Emerson
merge into one single white
figure” (508).
The Invisible Man finally embraces
his Grandfather’s curse. All of those
three men tried to make him see and
believe their point of view and didn’t
care what he thought about it. They
were using him.
“You go along for years
knowing something is
wrong, then suddenly you
discover you’re as
transparent as air” (575).
The Invisible Man has spent
so much time trying to fix his
life, but he realizes that he
never really mattered and he
ended up back at the
beginning.