A Final Judgement in Character

M. Annunziato
Invisible Man

Throughout this story we have been introduced to people and have been able to watch as they change and grow either through their experiences or simply through more information about them being available to us. The most prominent character in the Invisible Man is the nameless narrator. The narrator is the main focus in the book and we were able to observe him the most throughout the story. Brother Jack is the leader of the organization that calls itself “the Brotherhood” who claims that they are the voice of the people who have lost their heritage and past and convinces the naïve narrator to join into their shady and deceiving group.
The most prominent character of the story, the narrator, is nameless; this serves as a way for the reader to sink into the character even more than usual as there is no specific person that he is called. In the beginning of the story we see the narrator as a younger person with hopes of going to college. He is invited to a gathering to give a speech, which he loves to do, and almost against his will he is thrust into a boxing match that is very dangerous as every single boxer is blindfolded to enhance the entertainment for the drunken white men watching. He does not really want to fight but he doesn’t want to miss this speech opportunity more; so he fights. Midway through the brawl he realizes that he can lift up his blindfold a little bit so that he can see and protect himself. This scene shows that the character will do what it takes to come out on top and to save himself if needed. As the others stumbled blindly around him he swiftly sidestepped out of harm’s way until it was only him and one other man left. At this point the blindfolds were removed and he had to battle this person without any tricks. As the fight continues he repeatedly tries to offer his competitor deals to end the fight without any real injuries; here we were able to see his sly mind at work. Not wanting to be brutally beaten or embarrassed in front of everyone he wants the other man to take a fall and in return he can have all the prize money. He is looking out for himself and his future, a primal instinct of every human. In these early scenes, before the narrator comes face to face with the brotherhood we also see him as a very naïve young person who thinks the best of everyone with little to no ill thoughts. He is very clean cut and respectful of authority and those above him in society and maintains this affect even when there are very clear reasons as to why he shouldn’t.
As the plot progresses and the narrator grows we see him start to abandon his old ways. One occasion where this is extremely evident to me is the time where he is introduced to the idea of the Brotherhood and how he goes about handling the decision of whether or not to join. Unlike previous incidents where he was very thoughtful about everything, such as when he is driving the old man around his campus, he makes this decision in a very brash manner. It takes only a day after meeting the strange Brother Jack to join the group and what is even odder is how quickly he accepts their terms without a fight. One of reasons the narrator has acted so consciously up to this point is because of his grandfather’s words and his heritage; his dying grandfather spoke words of shame and sorrow on his death bed calling himself a traitor to his people for doing the things that he did and this very thought always invaded the narrator’s mind in every decision that he made. In order to be able to join the Brotherhood the narrator had to do one “simple” thing and that was to give up his entire life up to that point and pretend it never existed. He would be given a new name and a new life and without much consideration the narrator accepted. Here we can see how he shows signs of anxiousness to continue on with his life in the manner that he wants. In my opinion he acts this way because at this point he has nothing; he has no money, he is bumming shelter off of a close friend, and he has lost his education. If anyone were in this position most likely they would jump on it too, just to try to dig themselves out of a rut. He is still innocent at this point and thinks nothing of the racist group he has just joined. He is still blinded even without the blindfold on and this leads him to make poor choices.
Towards the end of the book the narrator actually starts to see as he is cast out from the Brotherhood and hunted by a strong opponent of the Brotherhood. At this point the narrator actually tries to become invisible to hide from danger that looms around every corner. He dons dark classes and a big coat and proceeds to the underground where no one knows him and he can be safe. In these pages we can see the character running away and I believe that he was actually also running from the person that he had become while in the Brotherhood. He wanted to disconnect with anything that posed a threat so he went into hiding and covered himself up. We can see here that he was afraid for his life but wasn’t going to give up. After hiding out for a little bit we see him realize that by hiding himself to the world he is also hiding himself from himself by not letting his true being shine through. It is almost as if he is a bright lamp with a sheet over it, unable to overcome the suffocating and oppressing sheet.
At this point we can look at the meaning of the title the Invisible Man. From the very beginning the narrator is invisible; we get a very indirect description of him, he is nameless, and he never steps out of the first person role for the world to observe him. While in the Brotherhood he is invisible because he is not allowed to show who he truly is, he is forced to hide behind a mask that the group gives him which covers up his past entirely. And at the end is where he is the most invisible in the entire book. He is in hiding from people trying to kill him so he covers up his entire body with big clothes and dark glasses. No one knows who he is what his story is and at that point that is what he wanted: solitude, safety, and security. The narrator proved to be a very complex character who grew and changed substantially over the course of the entire book.