"invisible man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

The chapter ends with his arrival at his new home, a clean three-room apartment in a neutral, racially mixed neighborhood on the upper East Side. It is a neat, orderly, well-maintained world, just like the organization he has joined. He spends the remainder of the day in the apartment studying the pamphlets the Brotherhood has given him and preparing to make his first speech at a rally in Harlem that evening.

^^^^^^^^^^INVISIBLE MAN: CHAPTER 16

Chapter 16 is an important and exciting chapter, consisting largely of the narrator's first speech for the Brotherhood and the reaction of the Brothers to it. The chapter is shot through with images of sight and blindness. Look for them as you read, and ask yourself what they are suggesting.

The narrator is driven by Brother Jack and some others to an arena in Harlem that is usually used for boxing matches. He remembers his father telling him how a famous boxer had been beaten blind in a fight in that arena, and the narrator notices the boxer's picture on the wall. He is nervous in his new blue suit, wondering how he will do and whether the people will like him. He paces up and down in the locker room, goes outside, then comes back in again, anxious to get started. Then Brother Jack gives the signal and they all march in, as the crowd sings "John Brown's body lies a mold'ring in the grave." The narrator's eyes are blinded by the spotlights as they move toward the stage.

The speeches begin. Each speaker touches on a different aspect of the problem. Then comes the narrator's turn. He is the one the crowd has been waiting for, the hero of the eviction protest, the young man who spoke and disappeared and then was found again by the Brotherhood.

At first he doesn't know what to do, but, as in the eviction speech, he follows instinct. He goes back to what he knows, the tradition of southern political oratory that he grew up with. "They think we're blind," he tells his audience. "Think about it, they've dispossessed us each of one eye from the day we're born.... We're a nation of one-eyed mice." Playing on the metaphor of blindness, he asks the members of his audience to join together and help one another to see better rather than using the one eye that each of them has to attack others. "Let's reclaim our sight; let's combine and spread our vision."

Moved by his own words and the response of the crowd, he becomes more personal. "I feel, I feel suddenly that I have become more human," he tells the crowd almost in a whisper. There is at that moment a special bond between the speaker and his audience, a bond that is personal and deeply emotional. He finishes, and the crowd goes wild. The brothers file from the stage, and Brother Jack is excited. But the reaction of the other brothers is not so positive. The narrator is stunned. The speech has been the greatest moment of his life, and the brothers are telling him that it was "a most unsatisfactory beginning."

Two of the brothers in particular--one identified as the man with the pipe and the other named Brother Wrestrum (whom we will meet again)--say that the speech is backward and reactionary. They tell the narrator and the other brothers that such emotional tactics are not in keeping with the scientific discipline of the Brotherhood. The people must be taught rationally to understand their role as part of the process of history. Emotional rabble-rousers like the narrator are simply of no use to the Brotherhood's design.

Brother Jack, who has listened carefully to both praise and criticism, finds a middle road. The new brother is to be trained. He will not be allowed to speak again until he is properly indoctrinated into the Brotherhood's philosophy and methods. He will be sent to Brother Hambro. The group agrees that the narrator is to begin training with Brother Hambro the next morning, and so he goes home, exhausted, disappointed that the brothers did not approve, but happy about his relationship with the people. As he lies in bed, trying to figure out what has happened, he wonders what he meant by the phrase "more human." Was it something he learned in college? He remembers an English teacher named Woolridge who taught him Joyce and Yeats and O'Casey, those great writers of the Irish Renaissance, and he remembers something Woolridge said: "Stephen's problem, like ours, was not actually one of creating the uncreated conscience of his race, but of creating the uncreated features of his face.... We create the race by creating ourselves...."

NOTE: "THE UNCREATED FEATURES OF HIS FACE" Almost every critic who writes about Invisible Man discusses this phrase, which has become one of the most widely quoted lines from the novel. Stephen Dedalus, the hero of James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, leaves Ireland at the end of the novel to begin his task as an artist of creating "the uncreated conscience of my race." Ellison plays on Joyce's phrase by changing "conscience" to "features" and "race" to "face." Ellison is an individualist who believes that the job of each individual is to create himself, to become genuinely and honestly a single individual. Stephen wants to become a spokesman for the Irish people, his race, but Ellison does not want to be thought of just as a black writer. His hero is an individual in the act of creating himself, in the act of becoming a person, a "more human" person.

^^^^^^^^^^INVISIBLE MAN: CHAPTER 17

There is a passage of four months. The narrator has been studying with Hambro, "a tall, friendly man, a lawyer and the Brotherhood's chief theoretician." Hambro is a hard teacher, but he is fair, and the narrator feels, as the chapter opens, that he is ready for whatever the Brotherhood wants him to do. He has attended meetings regularly all over the city, he has come to know the Brotherhood ideology well, and he has learned the discipline that is involved in working for the Brotherhood.

On the day the action of the chapter begins, Brother Jack calls the narrator and drives him to Harlem, where they talk in a bar. He informs the narrator that he has been appointed chief spokesman of the Harlem district. The narrator is overjoyed. His dreams have been fulfilled. In this way he can work directly with his people. Brother Jack takes him to the office, introduces him to Brother Tarp, with whom he will be working, and reminds him to be there the next morning for a full committee meeting.

The meeting begins promptly at nine, and all the committee members are there except for Brother Tod Clifton. As Brother Jack begins the meeting by announcing the narrator's appointment as chief spokesman, Clifton comes in, a bandage on his face covering a wound he received fighting one of Ras the Exhorter's men. He is late because he had to go to the doctor.

Who is Ras the Exhorter? He is a short, stout black man who has been organizing Harlem on a racist basis, preaching the gospel of black nationalism, and sending his men to fight any organization, like the Brotherhood, that advocates cooperation between blacks and whites. The conflict between the Brotherhood (represented by the narrator and Tod Clifton) and Ras the Exhorter serves as one of the central themes of the last third of the novel.

Tod Clifton and the narrator quickly become friends. Tod is an extremely handsome young black man who seems to carry in his genetic makeup the best features of both his African and Anglo-Saxon ancestry. He is a hard worker who welcomes the narrator as an ally. The narrator will organize the community leaders behind the Brotherhood's policy of fighting against evictions, and Tod will organize his youth groups to protect the narrator and other neighborhood speakers from being attacked on the street. Tod is excited about the plan for organizing Harlem. "It'll be bigger than anything since Garvey," he says.

NOTE: MARCUS GARVEY Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) was a native of Jamaica who came to New York in 1916 and started a black nationalist movement, urging American blacks to return to Africa. Garvey had an estimated two million followers during the 1920s. He was convicted of mail fraud in 1925 and returned to Jamaica in 1927 after serving time in prison. Some of Ras the Exhorter's ideas are very similar to those of Garvey, though the Exhorter is in no way an attempt by Ellison to depict Marcus Garvey.

Tod and the narrator take to the streets and are forced almost immediately into a confrontation with Ras the Exhorter's men, who interrupt the narrator's first speech that evening. The narrator tackles one of Ras' men, and Tod goes after Ras himself. The narrator beats his man, then goes to help Tod, whom he finds in an alley lying on his back with Ras, knife in hand, standing over him. Helpless, the narrator is forced to watch and to listen.

Ras is a fascinating figure, and in this scene you may find him both appealing and repulsive at the same time. He is crazy and violent, but to many readers what he says makes sense. You will have to weigh the arguments on both sides carefully as you think about Ras. He spares Tod's life because he loves him, he admires him, and he wants him to come over to his side. He wants the narrator, too. He says that Tod is first of all an African and that in Africa a man as handsome and intelligent as Tod would be king. He stands over Tod with his knife, essentially arguing with him, trying to persuade him to come over to the Black Nationalist cause. These white men will betray you, Ras tells Tod. They will get rid of you when it suits their purpose, so don't trust them. He accuses Tod and the narrator of joining the Brotherhood so they can enjoy white women. He pleads with them to be part of black unity, to break entirely with any organization run by white men. What do you think of these arguments? They are very similar to those used by black militants in the 1960s, most notably the Black Muslims and the Black Panthers. The Communists did, in effect, betray the black members of the party who worked so hard during the 1930s, and this might suggest that Ras is right. What is Ellison supporting? Is it possible to know at this point in the novel? Keep these questions in mind as you continue reading.

Chapter 17 ends with a brief scene the next morning in the narrator's office. Brother Tarp comes in and hangs a picture of Frederick Douglass on the wall facing the narrator's desk. Douglass is Tarp's hero, and he wants the narrator to see him as he works.

NOTE: FREDERICK DOUGLASS Born a slave named Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey in 1817, this famous fighter for black rights ran away from his owner in 1838, ending up in Massachusetts, where he changed his name to Frederick Douglass. A brilliant speaker and writer, he devoted his life to work for the abolition of slavery and the elimination of racial discrimination. His autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845; revised 1881), is one of the great pieces of black American literature and became an inspiration to generations of blacks fighting for equality in America. Ellison's use of a variety of famous black leaders as possible models for the narrator is important. Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, and Douglass represent three different paths for blacks to follow. Brother Tarp would like the narrator to imitate Frederick Douglass, and the narrator at the end of Chapter 17 finds the idea very exciting.

^^^^^^^^^^INVISIBLE MAN: CHAPTER 18

Time passes, how much you don't know, but it seems to be at least a couple of months. The Brotherhood's work in Harlem is extraordinarily successful. The narrator's speeches and parades, the organization of the community's ministers and politicians, the enthusiasm of the people for the issue of evictions all combine to increase membership in the Brotherhood at a dizzying rate and make the narrator famous.

At the beginning of Chapter 18 the narrator receives an anonymous note telling him to slow down. The note says that the Brotherhood doesn't want him to be so famous. He will be cut down if he isn't careful. He is both angry and frightened. Who could have written it? It came in an envelope with no postage stamp. Does that mean it was an inside job? Who do you think sent the letter? Look for clues as you read the remainder of the chapter.

The narrator asks Brother Tarp how the members feel about him, and Tarp reminds him that his stress on interracial cooperation has led to the creation of a poster entitled "After the Struggle: The Rainbow of America's Future." Youth members have mounted the posters in subways, and people have begun hanging them in their homes. Tarp is impressed with the success of the narrator's work and reassures him that the people are behind him.