Chapter 7 is a short but informative one. It shows many major themes as well as icons of symbolism. Invisible Man begins buying tickets for a bus ride. He boards the bus and meets the vet and Mr. Crenshaw. Invisible Man's reason for riding the bus is to find a better way of life in Harlem, New York. The vet uses the theme of dreams as he describes the city to Invisible Man.
Vet: "New York!...That's not a place, it's a dream...Now all the little black boys run away to New York. Out of the fire and into the melting pot" (152).
The vet gives more helpful advice to Invisible Man. He tells him that he must know how to play life, know the players, know yourself, know them.
Them refers to "the white, authority, the gods, fate, circumstances - the force that pulls your strings until you refuse to be pulled any more" (154).
On the way, Invisible Man sees a moccasin on the roadside "wiggle swiftly along the gray concrete, vanishing into a length of iron pipe" (156).
Invisible Man arrives at New York and sees it very differently. There are many blacks about. Even a "black police man directing traffic - and there were white drivers in the traffic who obeyed his signals as though it was the most natural thing in the world" (159).
Invisible Man then sees a black man shouting to a group of blacks, shaking his fist into the air as he speaks.
The chapter ends as Invisible Man walks into the Men's House. He needs "to take Harlem a little at a time" (161).
Other Chapters
Prologue| Chapter 1| Chapter 2| Chapter 3| Chapter 4| Chapter 5| Chapter 6| Chapter 7| Chapter 8| Chapter 9| Chapter 10| Chapter 11| Chapter 12| Chapter 13| Chapter 14| Chapter 15| Chapter 16| Chapter 17| Chapter 18| Chapter 19| Chapter 20| Chapter 21| Chapter 22| Chapter 23| Chapter 24| Chapter 25| Epilogue