Finished: Invisible Man (Ellison). Powerful, intense book. My brain is exhausted! My smart, beautiful daughter suggested this book because it was one of her favorite high school required reading books. I'm so glad I took her suggestion. What an intense book...very moving. I believe it affected me in the same way The Help did. The protagonist of the story, a black man, considers himself invisible to society, whether he sits back and does nothing, or gets involved in issues...he considers himself, his actions and his motivations unseen by both peers and those more influential people who lead him to believe they are trying to bring about change.

Invisible Man is the story of a young black man in the late 1940's who, upon graduating from high school and giving a fabulous speech, is invited to give his speech for an "important" group of white men. This is the first of many events where the naive, young man experiences both the lifting and dashing of his hopes during the same event. It's so sad. :-( When he arrives, so excited and proud, to give his speech...he is first thrust, blind-folded, into a fighting ring with nine other young black men and made to fight until the last man is standing. It is a humiliating challenge called the Battle Royal, where all the prominent white men of the community jeer and froth until there is a winner. All the young man can think of the entire time is "When am I going to give my speech?" After the Battle Royal is finished, he starts to leave, but is called back to change his clothes and finally give his speech. He does so, but is shown flagrant disrespect as most of the men talk and laugh through the entire speech. At the end, dejected, he begins to leave again. At that point the superintendent of schools, who had suggested he give the speech in the first place, gives him the gift of a shiny new brief case. Inside is a scholarship from the men to the "Negroe College". Thrilled with the opportunity, it's as if the degradation he had to face is supposed to be wiped clean.

 The story then continues with the young man in his junior year at the Negroe College. He has done well in his academics, is well-respected on campus, has represented the college on the debate team, and is among the elite students chosen to drive the visiting white benefactors of the school around during the benefactor weekend. His benefactor asks him to drive him around on some roads he's never seen before, and the young man (who is never named) naively drives him into the country where the benefactor sees the poverty of the black community around the college. He sees some people living in old slave quarters and insists on getting out to speak to them. The whole conversation so shocks him that he nearly passes out and asks to be given a drink of whiskey as soon as possible. The young man then takes him to the nearest establishment which is a bar frequented by old black vets who are mostly housed at the mental hospital. Various confrontations ensue, and the benefactor is driven to nearly passing out again. When the young man finally gets the benefactor back to the college, Dr. Bledsoe, the powerful, influential black president of the college is livid with him. In this explosive passage, you see just how far opposite these two characters are:

     "He was interested in the cabins, sir. He was surprised that there were any left."
     "So naturally you stopped." he said, bowing his head again.
     "Yes, sir."
     "Yes, and I suppose the cabin opened up and told him its life history and all the choice gossip?"
     I started to explain.
     "Boy!" he exploded. "Are you serious? Why were you out on the road in the first place? Weren't you behind the wheel?"
     "Yes, sir..."
     "Then haven't we bowed and scraped and begged and lied enough decent homes and drives for you to show him? Did you think that white man had to come a thousand miles--all the way from New York and Boston and Philadelphia just for you to show him a slum? Don't just stand there, say something!"
     "But I was only driving him, sir. I only stopped there after he ordered me to..."
     "Ordered you?" he said. "He ordered you. Dammit, white folk are always giving orders, it's a habit with them. Why didn't you make an excuse? Couldn't you say they had sickness--smallpox--or picked another cabin? Why that Trueblood shack? My God, boy! You're black and living in the South--did you forget how to lie?"
     "Lie, sir? Lie to him, lie to a trustee, sir? Me?"
     He shook his head with a kind of anguish. "And me thinking I'd picked a boy with a brain," he said. "Didn't you know you were endangering the school?"
     "But I was only trying to please him..."
     "Please him? And here you are a junior in college! Why, the dumbest black bastard in the cotton patch knows that the only way to please a white man is to tell him a lie! What kind of education are you getting around here?  Who really told you to take him out there?" he said.
     "He did, sir. No one else."
     "Don't lie to me!"
     "That's the truth, sir."
     "I warn you now, who suggested it?"
     "I swear, sir. No one told me."
     "Nigger, this isn't the time to lie. I'm not a white man. Tell me the truth!"
     It was as though he'd struck me. I stared across the desk thinking. He call me that...
     "Answer me, boy!"
     That, I thought, noticing the throbbing vein that rose between his eyes, thinking, He called me that.
     He struck his desk. "College for Negroes! Boy, what do you know other than how to ruin an institution in half an hour that took over half a hundred years to build?"

The passage goes on and on, and is heartbreaking. The young man is expelled from the school by someone he'd so looked up to. The president could think only of how this incident would harm the school. One of the very people who was supposed to be lifting up a young, black man and helping him make the most of himself, completely disregarded the intentions of the original college founder when he saw his own mighty position and power among the white men possibly threatened. He tells the young man to go to work in New York...that he'll write him several letters of recommendation to other benefactors...and that perhaps when he's earned enough money, he can come back to school the next year to finish. Shocked and saddened, the young man has no choice but to go along with the plan. Arriving in Harlem, he sees the bright side of things and thinks perhaps his horizons will be broadened by working for a year for one of the benefactors before finishing his education. His hopes are once again dashed, though, when he is turned down by all the benefactors and finally discovers that the letters of recommendation were actually letters of condemnation. The president never wanted him back at the school again. I believe at this point I was as shocked and discouraged as the young man. (Though, I just KNEW those letters would be bad!)

Eventually the young man is taken under the wing of "The Brotherhood"...and organization run by rich white men who say they want there to be equality for all men, white, brown and black. They use the once again naive young man and his orating skills to stir the passions of the Harlem community. However, just when the community, both white and black, is coming together under the young man's leadership, they yank him out without a word and leave the Harlem community feeling betrayed and abandoned. After a breakdown of communication, riots ensue. Finally...finally, the young man sees that he was used by "The Brotherhood" and they never really saw him for who he was at all. They used him only as a tool for this master plan of, first, lifting Harlem high with hope, and then dashing the hope into despair. At the end of the book, just as in the beginning, the young man is now a black man who lives invisibly in a basement in Harlem....doing nothing and associating with no one. He has finally understood all the happened to him, though.

I know I didn't explain that very well, but that's the gist of it. I can't believe these deep-thinking, heartbreaking books that were my childrens' favorite required reading in high school....Invisible Man for Jenny Cate and Kite Runner for Josh. I believe they were highly more evolved and compassionate adults in the making than I ever was in high school!