In chapter one, and in much of the book for that matter, the narrator has no conception of invisibility or blindness. For a while, his only thoughts are that to be with the Brotherhood is to be visible, and everyone who isn't is invisible (like Todd Clifton). Members of the Brotherhood also consider everyone else blind because they lack the scientific view the Brothers take. I am not sure if the narrator completely believes this, but he seems to go along with it. While in the Brotherhood, however, the narrator is invisible (goes by a false name, is seen as "leader", etc.) as well as blind (only sees masses, is blinded by spotlight, etc.). Only when the narrator finally breaks with the Brotherhood and retreats to his brightly lit hole does he become fully aware of his invisibility. At this point though, he does not fully understand the extent to which everyone is invisible, and to which he himself is and has been blind. By the end of the novel, the narrator seems to realize that he has not really seen anyone else. This is obvious to readers, because none of the others characters are even remotely well-developed. And because the narrator is writing the book, it is likely that he notices this as well. After the narrator has reflected on his life by writing about it, I think he realizes that the man he talks about beating up in the prologue was just as invisible to the narrator as the narrator was to him. This is just one example of the narrator's blindness, as well as the invisibility of everyone else. As the narrator says in the prologue, the invisibility is caused by the blindness of others. Once the narrator become aware of how blind he has been, he becomes more determined to go out into the world and stop being blind. He sees that the 1,369 lights in his basement may have been just as blinding as the stage lights, at least until has started using them to write a book.
When the narrator begins the prologue, he knows that he has been bind to his own invisibility for most of his life. By the time he finishes the book, he discovers that he has also been blind to every one else, and thereby causing them to be invisible as well. He sees that his blindness has only been perpetuating his in other people's invisibility, and seems determined to come out of his cave and try to change that. Or perhaps not. But at the very least his is aware that he is blind as well as invisible, and he only found that out by undergoing thorough meditation on his life in the form of an autobiography.
But the "blindness" with regard to other characters *exists* within the book he's writing in that basement--so while the many lightbulbs do serve on one level as an image of his enlightenment, which takes the form of the memoir he's writing, it also maybe is (at the same time) an image of blindness, like the lights on stage when he delivers that first speech (the content of which, with its theme of self-realization and assertion of a new identity, actually mirrors that of the book itself). Like so many other paradoxes in this novel, the lights both help him to see AND blind him.
ReplyDeleteI was considering bringing up this comparison, because it jumped out to me when I started writing about lights, but I think that in the end, the lights in the basement help the narrator see his blindness. Actually as I am writing this, I recall that he does realize that he is blind while giving his speech. I take back what I said earlier. Both lights make him blind, but then also reveal his blindness to him. During his speech, he thinks that he does not know whether the man replying to him is being friendly or mean, and though I had not thought of it before, that shows that he knows to some extent that he is blind.
DeleteThis idea that the narrator has developed over the course of writing the book is definitely something I've given quite a bit of thought. In the prologue, we see him portrayed as a powerful, seemingly un-restrained character. He seems to know something we don't, like when he mugs the white man and proceeds to laughs hysterically, perhaps at some joke we don't have the capacity to understand. However, over the course of the book, we can see that he is altering his perspective of himself. The epilogue leaves him still wondering about what he wrote down, as if realizing there is more to the story than he previously believed. He starts to realize that his room of 1,369 lightbulbs is really yet another example of his blindness. This relates back to his being in the Brotherhood, and how invincible he felt in the moment. When he started, he felt the surge of power that came with rilling up crowds, though he was unknowingly being blinded at the same time. The Brotherhood later revealed to him that personal thoughts did not trump the scripted ideology it supposedly stood for, and the narrator left, thinking he had outsmarted his situation yet again. However, since he then sat down to write the book and continued to change throughout, it leaves me to wonder--is he still blind, at least to a certain extent? His eyes have definitely been opening over the course of his life, though I'm unsure whether the end of the book marks the end of his development.
ReplyDeleteYes, some very good points on the most complex element in the book. When you mentioned how he has no concept of blindness in the first chapter, the paradox of the fact that we was in fact blindfolded hit me. It is interesting that this is his most literal experience with blindness and he doesn't acknowledge it in the slightest. This shows how he is completely oblivious to an almost humorous degree.
ReplyDeleteThe narrator’s perception of the world changes drastically from the beginning of the book to the end of it. After he experiences these events, he feels one way (that he is an invisible man), but in writing about his struggle he modifies that. Are you saying that when the book ended he still thought that when he was with the Brotherhood he was visible? I think that he was still mad at them when he first went down the hole, as they tried to fire him and get rid of their Harlem office. But I feel that he didn’t really recognize or understand their true intentions until he reflected on them through writing. I like that you drew the comparison with the lightbulbs in his room to the stage lights while he was giving his speech. I think that the lightbulbs in his room were to illuminate himself (I think he mentions this), rather than make him invisible. He needed to go back into himself through writing and discover things, and he needed to illuminate himself.
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