Prologue

Jeff Carpenter

Run Down

The narrator (who shall hereafter be known as IM) is invisible in the eyes of others. Before this novel even begins, we glimpse the protagonist as he is at the end of it all. The finale, really. In retrospect, he says to have once been optimistic and, hence, naive.

IM recalls beating a man to death on the street. The provocation for such an assault: being ignored. This event may or may not have happened, but the extent that IM is ignored by society is so great that he truly feels capable of such an act.

IM tells that he finally realized himself to be invisible, and learned to profiteer from it. He steals electricity, and lives in a basement, and nobody really cares. He is hibernating, and waiting for a chance for action, insinuating that a chance will be missed at a later part in the novel.

A significant section of this prologue occurs in italics, representing IM's hallucinogenic dream. In this vision, IM converses with a female slave who bore sons by her master. That master is now dead, and her sons are rejoicing, much to her delight and disdain. IM attempts to understand the contradicting emotions with the mission of understanding the suffering of the human race.

Quotations

"I am an invisible man" (3).

This is the oppening sentence of the book that refers the reader to the title. It becomes clear that the title refers to the narrator, and this narrator has no qualms or misinterpretations about his status.

"...there are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers" (5).

The "sleepwalkers" are society's people who ignore blacks and make IM invisible. Waking them is to be noticed and, as he insinuates, be punished.

Some General Themes

Sacrifice, for IM gives up his life once he realizes himself to be invisible in the eyes of others.

Violence, in the image of himself attacking the man on the street

Blindness is caused by the thousands of light bulbs in IM's basement and parallels the rest of the world's blindness towards him.

Most of all, IM professes to be ready for action. This prepares the reader for possible lost opportunity, and most certainly lost faith in the up-coming chapters.

Other Chapters