Quotation
“He lay there, moaning on the asphalt;
a man almost killed by a phantom…I
began to laugh at this crazy discovery.
Would he have awakened at the point
of death? Would Death himself have
freed him for wakeful living?” (Ellison
5)
“It took me a long time and much
painful boomeranging of my
expectations to achieve a realization
everyone else appears to have been
born with: That I am nobody but
myself. But first I had to discover that
I am an invisible man!” (Ellison 15)
“I fished it out with a spoon and then
downed the acid drink, proud to have
resisted the pork chop and grits. It
was an act of discipline, a sign of
change that was coming over me and
which would return me to college a
more experienced man” (Ellison 178).
Interpretation
Ellison in this part personifies Death,
by giving it human characteristics. He
gives death the ability to free
someone. The word ‘phantom’ brings
back a connection to the shadow
imagery used in Photography of the
Color Line.
This quote is important because it
helps establish a main theme of this
novel, which is obviously based off its
title, Invisible Man. Ellison uses
hyperbole when he presents a
boomeranging of expectations.
The narrator is trying to show that he
is beginning to change into someone,
who could easily dismiss and standup
against the racist stereotype placed on
him by the counterman. This man
assumes because the narrator is black
that he would automatically want to
eat pork chops and grits.
“Cause we started stressing it from the
In chapter ten there is a lot of imagery
first. We make the best white paint in
and symbolism with black and white
the world, I don’t give a damn what
paint. The narrator is in the North
nobody says. Our white is so white
thinking that assimilation has truly
you can paint a chunka coal and you’d
occurred, but his supervisor shows
have to crack it open with a sledge
that even the North is far away. His
hammer to prove it wasn’t white clear
emphasis that the black paint can be
through” (Ellison 217).
covered up and turned into white
paint symbolizes how whites in this
time were trying to cover up black
identity.
“Why were they causing me
discomfort so far beyond their
intrinsic meaning as objects? And why
did I see them now, as behind a veil
that threatened to lift, stirred by the
cold wind in the narrow street?”
(Ellison 273)
The narrator starts to feel a stirring in
his soul that makes him value the
objects that are getting removed from
the old woman’s house more than he
thinks he should. He sees the
dispossessed objects and people as
standing behind a veil that was soon
to be lifted, which foreshadows the
speech the narrator gives to ignite the
crowd to resistance.
“This is your new name. Start thinking
of yourself by that name from this
moment. Get it down so that even if
you are called in the middle of the
night you will respond. Very soon you
shall be known by it all over the
country” (Ellison 309).
Throughout the novel the narrator has
struggled with his own identity. When
with Brother Jack and the
Brotherhood he is actually given a
brand new identity, which he can use
to mold himself into something
different than his past self.
“I wanted to punch that face. It no
The narrator considers Wrestrum’s
longer seemed real, but a mask behind
face a mask and behind that mask, he
which the real face was probably
imagines, the real Wrestrum is
laughing, both at me and at the others.
laughing. This quote brings up a
For he couldn’t believe what he had
recurring theme of the novel of how
said” (Ellison 401).
hard it is to establish a real identity
for yourself and others.
“I knew I should get back to the
The Sambo doll is an important
district but I was held by the
symbol in Invisible Man, in which it
inanimate, boneless bouncing of the
represents a degrading black
grinning doll and struggled between
stereotype of a lazy slave, who would
the desire to join in laughter and to
sing and dance for their white
leap upon it with both feet” (Ellison
masters. The doll is controlled by
432).
strings, which can symbolize the white
power that has controlled blacks for
decades.
“The joined cardboard feet hung
The narrator in this scene is trying to
down, pulling the paper legs in elastic
cope with the reality that Clifton had
folds, a construction of tissue,
just been killed because of a doll. The
cardboard and glue. And yet I felt
narrator feels an intense hate and
hatred as for something alive. What
anger for something that is inanimate
had made it seem to dance?” (Ellison
and made of tissue, cardboard, and
446).
glue. This again emphasizes how
Ellison likes to place a focus on
objects.
“The merry-go-round had speeded up,
The shadow present in this quote is
I heard his voice but no longer
similar to the shadow imagery used by
listened. I stared at the glass, seeing
Smith in Photography of the Color
how the light shone through, throwing
Line. The eye lays right below the
a transparent, precisely fluted shadow
narrator and he feels as if it is gazing it
against the dark grain of the table, and
to him, even though it s completely
there on the bottom of the glass lay an
fake.
eye” (Ellison 474).
“I ran blindly, boiling with outrage and
I thought this quotation was a pretty
despair and harsh laughter. Running
powerful one. The narrator is full of
from the birds to what, I didn’t know. I
intense emotions and can’t even
ran. Why was I here at all? I ran
describe why he is running. He asks
through the night, ran within myself.
himself why is here at all. The
Ran” (Ellison 534).
emphasis on the fact that he ran
seems to make this part seem very
important. I also thought it was
interesting that it said he ran within
himself.
“that had brought me here still
This quote is extremely important
running, and knowing now who I was
because it seems as if the narrator has
and where I was and knowing too that
finally found his identity, which is
I had no longer to run for or from the
composed of the beautiful absurdity of
Jacks and the Emersons and the
his American identity. He realizes that
Bledsoes and Nortons, but only from
he no longer needs to be subject to the
their confusion, impatience, and
major figures in his life like the Jacks
refusal to recognize the beautiful
and Bledsoes. He realizes that these
absurdity of their American identity
men do not even recognize their true
and mine” (Ellison 559).
identities.