Invisible Man Blog #3

One passage really stood out to me. “Three white men and three black horses. And, as I turned to leave, one of the horses violently tossed its head and I saw the gauntleted fist yank down (292). This passage I believed was Ellison’s hidden way of showing the white dominance in the society the protagonist lived in. “Three white men and three black horses” Obviously, the men represent the white dominance, and the black horses, represent the black people. “One of the horses violently tossed its head”, I took this as a black person rising up against society. Also, the reason why I think Ellison addressed the horse” it” brings forth how much worth a black person held in this type of society. The horse wasn’t even given a gender. “I saw the gauntleted fist yank down”. Ellison’s purpose for writing this sentence I believed was to show his readers that even if a black person has enough courage to rise above the white dominance and try to make himself/herself worthy, a white person would come crashing down on their dreams and ego. Also, another passage that caught my attention was on the last page of chapter 16. “I thought of Bledsoe and Norton. By kicking me into the dark they’d made me see the possibility of achieving something greater and more important than I’d ever dreamed. Here was a way that didn’t lead through the back door, a way not limited by black and white. If one lived long enough and worked hard enough, they could lead to the highest possible rewards. For the first time, I could glimpse the possibility of being more than a member of a race”, (308). This is the first time in the book where Ellison does not make race a big deal for the protagonist. Instead of seeing everything black and white, the protagonist now acknowledged the fact that if one really does work hard enough, he or she will succeed. It’s interesting how much the protagonist has to go through in order to trust the white race. You’d expect to see some more trust between the races at this time since they suffered through the depression and WWI together, but there is still no unity. And Ellison does a good portraying the feud between the races.