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Showing posts from October, 2021

How the narrator has progressed outside of the book in Invisible Man

In Invisible Man  we see the narrator develop and progress as a person throughout the novel, and that is the main premise of the novel. The narrator goes through so much change, going from a young black man trying to please the white man at any chance he gets, to a civil rights activist advocating for equality for all, and everything in-between. These changes are quite obvious to the reader, yet I think we must consider the fact that the narrator is writing this story we've been following this whole time in his basement full of lights. This means that time has been passing why the narrator recollects his experiences in the past few years. In my opinion, throughout this time that the narrator was writing the novel he has progressed as a character as well. At the beginning of the novel the narrator talks in sort of an individualistic tone, talking about how he is an invisible man, and sort of complaining to the reader about how he is invisible and how nobody can relate to him. He exp...

The Narrator's Lack of Development and Deja Vu in Invisible Man

 In Invisible Man  we see the narrator go through multiple changes throughout the book, most notably his huge turnaround from trying to please the white man at any chance he can get, to what we know him as at this point in the book, which is a speaker and protestor for African-American rights and equality. Yet, I think that the narrator hasn't learned nearly as much as he thinks, as his naivety is still prominent in his everyday actions. He still faces racism in his everyday life in the North, yet he does not recognize it past the more obvious types. He still holds on to some of his dark, racist past, but not in the same way that Brother Tarp does. Brother Tarp has a shackle from when he broke free of slavery, to serve as a reminder of what he's been through. He gives the narrator this shackle, offering him similar advice to the grandfather when he cautions the narrator to never become too complacent about his freedom. However, the narrator doesn't really think much of it, ...