Invisible Man Chapter 1

I was planning to make my next Invisible Man blog about the rest of the prologue that I didn’t cover but I decided to skip ahead to Chapter one. Chapter one brings up many interesting themes that I think will be increasingly relevant as the novel progresses. Firstly, just like in Hamlet, we see the theme of seeming and “is’ing”/being. Seeming is what you appear to be on the outside. This is what others see or what they think they see. On the other hand, “being” is what you actually are. The old man tells the narrator that he has committed treachery when he gave up his gun in Reconstruction. In doing so, he gave up his ability to fight for the rights of blacks which meant he ultimately sided with the whites. He tells the narrator “I want you to keep up the up the good fight” but in a different, not with guns and fighting.  The narrator’s grandfather tells him to “Live in the lion’s mouth. I want you to overcome ‘em with yeses, undermine ‘em with grins, agree em’ to death and destruction, let ‘em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open”. In other words, his grandfather wants the narrator to seem to be happy with the whites. Pretend like you agree and that you want to be obedient.  However deep down he wants the narrator to remember that white people are his enemy. In doing so he can work against the whites while appearing not to be. This idea reminds me of Polonius’s famous line from Hamlet in Act I scene iii, “This above all: to thine ownself be true” because the narrator must always remember to put his own intentions before the whites.

Hamlet’s relationship with his father parallels the narrators relationship with his grandfather. They are both given tasks to carry out even after the death of the person who ordered it to them. I also found it interesting that the narrator also viewed his task as a curse like Hamlet does.