Chapter 11

Mark Ballard

Characters:

Invisible Man: Has just been injured at the factory.
Doctors: There are several nameless doctors that examine Invisible Man.
Doctor with new technology: Persuades others to use electroshock therapy on Invisible Man.
Long-haired man in black: writes questions on cards for Invisible Man to answer.
Nurse: First person Invisible Man sees after getting out of the box. She explains where he is.
Man who dismisses Invisible Man from the hospital: Invisible Man asks him about things in Invisible Man's past.

Plot Summary:

Following his accident, Invisible Man finds himself in a hospital. Several doctors examine him and ask him questions. Meanwhile, the narrator hears the opening motif from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony repeatedly in his head. Invisible Man starts to drift in and out of consciousness. He recovers long enough to hear the doctors debating over the best way to deal with him. One of the doctors persuades the others to try his experimental new electroshock therapy. Invisible Man is put into a glass box between two nodes and shocked. Eventually, a long-haired man in a black suit arrives and writes questions on large cards for Invisible Man to answer. The questions deal with simple facts about Invisible Man, yet he cannot find the answers. Invisible Man is then let out of the box, and a nurse explains that he is at the factory hospital. Another man in a white coat tells Invisible Man to leave and find an easier job. Invisible Man asks him questions about Mr. Norton and the narrator's old friends. The man says he does not know them, and Invisible Man leaves. As he is walking through a station, Invisible Man sees a young blonde woman eating a red Delicious apple.

Motifs:

White: Almost everything in the hospital is white: a white chair, white coats, white overalls, white walls.
Machines: Several pieces of hospital equipment are referred to as machinery.
Dancing: When he is being shocked, the doctors say Invisible Man looks like he is dancing.
Lights: The doctors shine many lights on Invisible Man during his examination.
Dreams: During his stay, Invisible Man goes in and out of dreams.

Symbols:

The Red Delicious apple: once again the symbol of an apple is used when Invisible Man is expelled.
The glass box: The box can be thought of as either a coffin where Invisible Man "dies" or a womb where he is "re-born."

Themes:

Violence: The "treatment" Invisible Man receives is extremely violent.
Rebirth/Death: This whole chapter is like a death and rebirth of Invisible Man into a new person.
Power: Invisible Man is powerless in the hospital.

Quotations:

Following his stay at the hospital, Invisible Man remarks, "...my mind and I--were no longer getting around in the same circles" (250).
As he leaves he addresses his new mind set, "I was no longer afraid. Not of important men, not of trustees and such" (249).
While in the box, Invisible Man cannot recall his past, "I realized that I no longer knew my own name" (239).

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