![]() Overall, this scene represents America's distorted value system. The book contains many other instances in which the narrator experiences a sense of betrayal as he is forced to abide by arbitrary rules devised by others. The only way he would be granted the opportunity to give his speech was to first participate in the humiliating blindfolded boxing match. Although as a young high school graduate he naïvely assumed he had some choice in whether to participate in the battle royal, looking back on the incident, he realizes that he had no choice. This episode introduces betrayal, broken promises, and game-playing themes. Determined to rid himself of the past, the narrator is nevertheless compelled to come to terms with his past before he can handle his present and future.ĭuring the course of the novel, the grandfather's spirit appears to the narrator on several occasions, providing his grandson with spiritual guidance, representing the legacy of slavery that continues to haunt black Americans, regardless of their social, political, or economic progress. Although it may appear merely incidental, this episode is an integral part of the novel because the grandfather, representing the ancestor or ghost of slavery, has a major impact on the narrator's life. In the last envelope, instead of the scholarship, he finds an engraved document with the message: "To Whom It May Concern: Keep This Nigger-Boy Running."Ĭhapter 1 consists of six key episodes: (1) the grandfather's deathbed scene, (2) the narrator's arrival at the hotel, (3) the naked blonde's erotic dance, (4) the battle royal, (5) the narrator's speech, and (6) the narrator's dream. Opening the envelope, the narrator finds that each envelope contains yet another envelope. His grandfather orders him to open the briefcase and read the message contained in an official envelope stamped with the state seal. ![]() That night, the narrator dreams that he is at the circus with his grandfather, who refuses to laugh at the clowns. ![]() After enduring these humiliating experiences, the narrator is finally permitted to give his speech and receives his prize: a calfskin briefcase that contains a scholarship to the local college for Negroes (a term Ellison preferred over "blacks"). The entertainment includes an erotic dance by a naked blonde woman with a flag tattoo on her stomach, which he and his classmates are forced to watch. When he arrived, he discovered that he was to provide part of the evening's entertainment for a roomful of drunken white men as a contestant, along with nine of his classmates, in a blindfolded boxing match (a "battle royal") before giving his speech. The narrator also recalls being invited to give his high school graduation speech at a gathering of the town's leading white citizens. The narrator relates an anecdote concerning his grandfather who, on his deathbed, shocks his family by revealing himself as a traitor and a spy (to his race). ![]() He remembers when he had not yet discovered his identity or realized that he was an invisible man. The narrator - speaking in the voice of a man in his 40s - reminiscing about his youth, opens the novel. ![]()
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