Blindness in Invisible Man essays

Blindness in Invisible Man essays Blinded by blindfolds, lights, fog, and nature. From beginning to end, blindness shines through as a prominent theme. Throughout Invisible Man, the black community refuses to see the way the white man treats them. Rather, they view the way whites treat them as a positive thing. The souths following of Booker T. Washingtons way of advancing does not allow African Americans to see that by being a yes man they are continually fulfilling the stereotypes given to them. Even in the North, the narrator faces problems with not being able to see the prejudices put on him by the white man. For one man, it takes a lot of growth and experience to realize what is going on. Invisible Man teaches that not everything you see is real; much of it is covered in a gray mist that hinders you from understanding the realities of the world. At the Battle Royal, the black boys wear blindfolds, which are placed on them by white men. They wear them just for the fun of the white men watching. By doing this, they become powerless and they are demoralized. The Battle Royal deals with the black mans inability to see how the white men treat them. The white men tease the boys with a white female dancer, they blindfold them to fight each other, they trick them with the copper coins on the electric rug, but in the end everyone does not see how they were used as entertainment for the evening. The whites give the boys money for coming to the Battle Royal, and they allow the narrator to give his speech and reward him with a scholarship to college. By doing this, the white men keep their power over the blacks. While it seems that the scholarship should allow the narrator to advance to the level of the whites, it cannot. Whites and black men, who follow all of their requests, control the college he attends. The whites retai n their power because they are keeping him in the South in one of th...