Chapter 8

Ernie Harris

In Chapter Eight, it seems that Invisible Man desires to be just like a New Yorker and at the same time is homesick. He does make a certain reference to colored people's time when he asserts "If you made an appointment with one of them you couldn't bring them any slow c.p. (colored people's) time" (163). He feels that he needs to somehow "measure up" to the white man's society by working on his own habits.

He also speaks of being better than Dr. Bledsoe while trying to get a job from white people. The gold and white bookcases in a building that Invisible Man goes into show the richness of surroundings, and they show that there is a sign of great power, especially when he speaks of having an interview with important white people. "With important men like that you had to be on time" (163). The most obvious theme would have to be invisibility when he says "eating with them in the same cafeterias (although I avoid their tables) gave me the eerie, out-of-focus sensation of a dream" (168). While he was among the white people he felt, that at the same time, he was unseen among them.

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