While reading Invisible Man I noticed the development in the invisible man’s relationship with the black social justice movement through his relocation to New York City. While in the south the invisible man is surrounded by white people just trying to fit in. He feels as though he has to “cultivate friendly relations” with the “southern white man who is his next-door neighbor.” This is shown through his speech made at the battle royal. His speech is extremely rehearsed to the point where he is reading from the text without any care to what is going on around him. He seems to be a clown in the circus created by the white men around him however he continues to preach Booker T. Washington’s words as if he is reading from a script. He tells the black man to remain in his place in the era of Jim Crow by being a laborer and not advocating for further social justice. We can see that even when the narrator arrives in New York City he remains subservient to the white man, remaining in his place as a laborer in a paint factory. While working in the factory he observes that only a few drops of white paint mixed into black paint created the whitest white imaginable. He witnesses that whites are prospering on the labor of black people and this compels him to act. When he sees the elderly couple being evicted and essentially dispossessed in the middle of the street it is a great awakening for him. He wasn’t sure that heartless evictions like the one he was witnessing occurred in the north and it riled him up. However, his instinct was still to remain in his place and not break the law. He spontaneously made a speech for the whole crowd gathered compelling them not to attack the police officers and to remain the good law-abiding citizens they were. But when the crowd responded back angrily the invisible man actually listened to them. By taking the crowds’ thoughts and incorporating them into his speech he was transformed and became angrier with every word he spoke. The readers could almost feel him experiencing this turmoil internally about how he should act. However, his spontaneity and instinctual capability to connect with a crowd were what attracted the brotherhood to him. And as he is ushered into the brotherhood the new chapter of his relationship to black people’s role in America begins. New York City essentially changed the invisible man’s entire perspective towards how black people should act towards the law. Being in the city transforms him from a subservient, meek puppet who was not in tune with his surroundings to an advocate for the people, influenced by the people ready to act to get the fundamental rights that they all deserved.

The “battle royal” depicted in Chapter 1 is a complex, surreal passage that makes great demands of us as readers. Each element of the scene seems richly symbolic, from the blindfolds to the coins to the striptease to the speech that culminates it. What are some of the implications of this scene? What do they tell us about how racial and other differences (gender,class) are constructed and maintained in this society? What’s the difference between the way we might read this episode and the way the IM himself reads it in the moment?

While I read this chapter, I could not help but think of Zora Neale Hurston and her attitude towards racial inequality. I thought of the scene where she describes purposefully performing for the enjoyment of white spectators. The battle royal scene in this novel differs exponentially from Hurston’s recollection of such event. Hurston embraces her expectations to perform, whereas in Ellison’s account of such performance is not only forced, but extremely violent. The boys are pinned against each other like a modern day cockfight. To escalate the severity of the situation, they are blindfolded. In a way, this removes their identity from themselves, as well as from their counterparts. It’s easy to swing at something you cannot even see and even easier to keep swinging when you cannot see the blood being shed, or when your own survival depends on it. I took this element as a motif interpreted literally to represent the “Invisible Man” Ellison used to title the book.

The implications of this scene are plenty. The first being that black people are the inferior race and in being so are seen as less than human. The white men in this chapter first took advantage of the narrator’s excitement towards pursuing an education, and then used fear to manipulate him into degrading himself to do as they say. The fear was not primarily of death, but of not being able to deliver his speech. Early on here, the connection and thirst for education is established and continues throughout the novel. The fight and the rug was done purely for their enjoyment and its intention was revealed at the falsity of the coins thrown over the rug. Another interesting moment was the introduction of the naked woman. Although she holds more privilege than the narrator and his friends, it is not highlighted in this chapter. She is also objectified and used as entertainment for the men. Fear stops her from refusing to be thrown about and touched in a way in which the narrator observes is not okay to her. She is used as a sex symbol to further the humiliation the boys are being succumbed to. This tells me that these social constructs are primarily founded on fear and promises of lending out privilege. What I mean by that is like dangling a carrot in front of a horse to get it to move. It is the same idea with the speech and the narrator. However, the fear and violence used by the white men is another necessary element in achieving these societal hierarchies.

In the moment IM does not seem to read into the connotations of what is occurring. He does not look at the white men with hate, but instead aims to gain their approval. Throughout all of the terrible events, he continues his focus on delivering the speech, which drives his behavior in said events. As we read it, we are disgusted with the events that are transpiring and are aware of its underlying fuel of hatred and inequality.