Throughout the book, we see The Invisible Man encounter people who tell him how foolish he is because he doesn’t realize who is really running the show. According to his grandfather, who is the first person in the book who shows us the double worlds and how to manipulate it, tells The Invisible Man that he needs to “overcome them with yeses”. The message he gives him is to fight, but to fight by having them think that you’re actually on their side.

Bledsoe shows The Invisible Man this message when he tells The Invisible Man that the white folks think they’re in charge and that they believe him to be a naive man but in fact Bledsoe is the one who’s “in control”.  He says “I say ‘Yes, suh’ as loudly as any burrhead when it’s convenient, but I’m still the king down here.” Bledsoe along with The Invisible Man’s grandfather is showing a picture of someone who follows the rules, and says yes, is reliable, but deep down is actually against the other. They’re fighting silently and by the books to be on top and not catch attention.

As the story develops, The Invisible Man falls into different settings by chance or because someone else made him do it. Bledsoe sends him off to New York, it isn’t because The Invisible Man wants to go work, it’s for Bledsoe’s own sake to not get in trouble or even to just not deal with The Invisible Man’s drama. He starts to work with The Brotherhood, not because he chose to work with them but because they decided he was a fit. When he spoke out and made a speech, it made an impact on Brother Jack and Brother Jack made the decision to recruit him and make him the speaker for The Brotherhood. The Invisible Man is constantly taken advantage of and used by others when convenient.

The Invisible Man finally comprehends what people have been saying about using the agreements and yeses to your advantage when people begin to mistake him for Rinehart. By simply wearing sunglasses, he would no longer be the Invisible Man but Rinehart, someone who was known around town, a reverend, someone who had women giving him money, referred to as daddy, and carried weapons. The Invisible Man had no prior knowledge of Rinehart before being confused as him but realized that being Rinehart was something he needed to do in life.

The Invisible Man gets the idea to work along with The Brotherhood and make them think he is the outstanding brother they want him to be, the one who doesn’t ask questions, the one who goes to the meetings and does what he is told. After having the talk with Hambro and learning he isn’t being told everything the Brotherhood is up to and that his people will be sacrificed.  By following the rules, saying the yeses, he’ll be smarter than them and making them destroy themselves from within and he could help his people. Being like Rinehart and playing the church figure while still running the crime scene allowed him to be and do as he pleased.

The dream like idea of belonging continues to be present throughout the novel, as the narrator eventually begins to understand the reality of the situation, he has experienced the feeling of betrayal when the Brotherhood had intentionally excluded him from the meeting, he slowly began to understand that he was simply used aa a tool. It would be nice to rebel but he is aware that to protest against the power he needs to be distant from it and then strategically come up with a plan of how to address the racism that ongoing. Just as Clifton’s sambo dolls reminds me of the powerful symbolism of puppets, which is very similar to the way black Americans have subjected themselves to see it as the norm to behave in a particular way that they ought to, simply because that’s the way they have been trained or advised to behave.

So, for the narrator to see that he had been used as a puppet and must now snap out of that show and create his own without aimlessly drifting off or acting in a way that will only lead to his death. He takes it upon himself to chisel Clifton’s memory into the minds of the black people which was him simply looking for trouble because he has stepped on the toes of the Brotherhood and with that move he seems to be against them, he didn’t ask for permission regarding Clifton’s eulogy and has now supposedly over stepped his boundaries. And as the Brotherhood expose their anger it becomes apparent that their notion to reject racism is in turn actually reawakening it. The Brotherhood is more focused on their image and will rather dance around the topic than hit the nail straight on its head and acknowledge the reality of a racist murder. The blindness of the committee to address the issue is an illustration of Jack’s glass eye, it symbolizes the group’s attempt to camouflage their blindness and the blindness of their ideologies. This demonstrates that the required tool for the Brotherhood is blindness which isn’t limited to just the followers but to the leaders also. Ironically as Jack loses his eyesight the narrator begins to see more clearly, he is able to ask probing questions to understand the hidden meaning of their words and is no longer just listening to what they have to say but now realizing his own goals and values compared to the Brotherhood’s are very different, observing that the group’s agenda seems to be very far from their supposed goals and values.

Identity tends to be a never ending battle in the Invisible Man with the narrator never truly sure where his heart lies. This novel follows the genre of a bildungsroman, where his overshadows a characters coming of age moments. Through this constant battle the narrator finds within himself and trying to please society as well we reach a moment of complete rebirth after his accident in the paint factory. The narrator awakes in the hospital, where doctors are deciding between tactics such as castration and shock therapy, due to the fact that he is unable to speak and is dealing with acute amnesia. Due to the accident at the factory the narrator has most likely lost his job, thus the only remaining aspect connecting him to his old life and the university have vanished. He is now unaware of what is occurring and is confused as to why he cannot speak. This scene symbolizes a rebirth, with him detaching from his old life, and entering a new chapter. When he is asked of his mother, he entries an entire consciousness of not only knowing who his mother is, but being unsure to define what a mother is at all. He is being reborn throughout the absence of his parent, thus the ideologies that they have been placed on him before are now relinquished as he is able to create his own set of ideologies. However with the next question he is asked, no matter how many times he may be able to be “reborn” in this society the stereotypes that follows a black male continues. They ask him “Who was Buckeye the Rabbit?”, convinced that due to his skin color he should be able to answer this answer regardless of his condition. At first the narrator was angry that such a question would be asked and then he begins to laugh on the inside at the doctors, pondering on the idea that he IS Buckeye the Rabbit, he is scared that an old identity has appeared to encroach onto his journey of newness. This rebirth however simply entails a new side of the invisible man, as his ability to not speak and for the doctors to continue to conjure up terrifying procedures on him, even though he is unable to speak depicts that through all of this he is still quite invisible. However his invisibility now has made him free, as he is able to enter New York with those surrounding him unaware of who he is, yet the accident has granted him a check, and the freedom to enter the city enduring any path he may desire. His rebirth has gifted him a side of him that is more evolved than his past, with undertones of his path still leeching on, reminding him of his beginnings.

The ending of the “Invisible Man” is truly powerful, a complete change from where we saw the invisible man in the start of the novel to the end. The invisible man is shutting out the world but choosing to be invisible but at the same time is coming out of hibernation. The narrator talks about seeing Norton in the train station, he was lost and needed direction. He asked the narrator and the narrator asked “Dont you know me.” while norton responds, “should I.” This scene filled me with a smile because I remember when he would be Nortons yes man while driving him around campus.And this time he answered him with I am your destiny. The narrator choose this event because he cannot forget his past, and believes its time for his rebirth. Which is why he says he must get out of hibernation. He says his grandfather was not far off. It is not good to be a “yes man” and not only that but he is not much different from everyone else in the world. The narrator realizes his destiny is not norton, Bledsoe but instead he writes his own destiny. The narrator has always ignored his obligations of society and remained invisible because he was scared to deal with reality. But at the end he realizes he can no longer live like that. He has to face society and most importantly face who he is.

The narrator has always been a yes man to everyone, including the brotherhood. He has ignored his needs to do what others of “high power’ tell him to do. If they suggest doing it a certain way the narrator never fought he always agreed. He is surprised at the end, and we see the words of his grandfather struck him differently now. He now knows that not everything in the world is explained and not everything has an answer.The narrator has always had a battle with himself rather than a battle of what he thought he was having with society. He always felt like his future was planned out for him and forced himself to act a certain way that was not his. The ending made him realize everything can be possible. Which is good, we see the narrator change, we do not see him being that yes man to everyone we no longer see him afraid of the past but aware. The narrator has come out of hibernation, the past can no longer hurt him.