African American Lit

The briefcase is with the narrator for a good portion of the story. All the metaphors and connections Ellison weaves in throughout the story makes it likely it has some deeper significance. The narrator's briefcase is introduced in the very first chapter; he gets it after giving a speech in front of a bunch of white people he had just been forced to fight in front of for their entertainment. The speech promotes ideas like Booker T's - lifting oneself up through hardwork etc. It's a reward for obediently following the people in control, for swallowing any blood and doing what they want and telling them what they want to her. He gets told to put important papers in the briefcase - does he follow this directive throughout the story? Do all the things he puts in the briefcase have some special significance to him or the story?  The first piece of paper put into the briefcase is his scholarship to the university, one of the locations the Narrator later describes as a place where...

Invisible Man is written entirely from the perspective of someone we know neither the credibility nor even the name of. First I want to address the fact that we don't have any sources to corroborate any part of his story. In class some people brought up that it's hard to believe some of the later crazier and fantastical events actually happened. It's implied that the story is some kind of memoir, or at least written in the future, which brings up the question whether the narrator is remembering everything correctly. What about when the doctors at the factory did something to his memory -  it feels like that should have had some effect on the way he remembers his past? Even aside from the unrealistic moments, is he twisting events to match how he felt during them? Or are the ideas he develops later about his life and experiences affecting them? During the narrative he often includes omniscient from the future remarks about his blindness in that moment. This makes me think th...