Question 7

I feel that the narrator's lack of identity, his special case of invisibility, is almost definitely caused by his status on the racial hierarchy. It seems like the idea of determinism plays a large role in the narrators life- no matter what he does he cannot escape his role as a subservient black man in a white society- even though he himself is obviously equal to all the white men presented in the novel. The narrator cannot forge an identity for himself because of the oppressive, exploitative relationship between white and black americans at the time.

The Vet brings this fact to the narrator on the bus ride north. He ascribes white men the qualities of cruel, unknoweable deities in that they are the "force that pulls you strings." The narrator still doesn't realize that he is trapped in his invisibility when he talks to Emerson's son, and realizes that Bledsoe has betrayed him. Even though the narrator always acted in propriety and tried to do the right thing, all in the hopes of bettering himself- he is trapped by forces beyond his control. Bledsoe only exists as an extension of white racism; he regards the narrator as a tool and discards him when the tool does not function in the way he expected.