Mary Rambo plays a role in shaping TIM for the future because she believes in his potential to do something for his race. She tells TIM that "It's you young folks what's going to make the change...You got to lead and you got to fight and move us all a little higher" (255). Mary knows that once an African American works his way to the top and makes a place for himself, he will forget about the others who are struggling to reach what he has achieved. It is almost as if she is describing Dr. Bledsoe all over again because he thinks he is helping his race, but in reality he is taking advantage of his power. He is a person who has become corrupted by power. Mary warns TIM about not letting Harlem get "under his skin" and corrupt him. He needs to remember the fire that has kept him going thus far and put it to good use in gaining better rights and treatment for his people. Unfortunately TIM has been subtly tagged as a Negro who will possibly turn "white" through the whiteness of the overalls he was wearing when Mary found him. This probably will be a reccurring theme that will reccur throughout the novel as TIM continues to learn about life in Harlem. Characters
Mary Rambo is an African-American woman known around the community for helping others although she is sometimes short on money. She happens to run into Invisible Man (TIM) after he is released from the hospital and allows him to stay with her until he is well enough to care for himself. She later becomes his landlord.

Ralston Jackson is with Mary when she finds TIM and helps her bring him to her home. Ralston is also the son of a family who Mary knows and has helped.

A prominent Baptist preacher encounters TIM when he is mistaken for Dr. Bledsoe. The Minister receives a royal baptism when TIM dumps the contents of a spittoon on his head in a fit of anger and confusion.

The porter at the Men's House slips TIM his things after he is kicked out of his room. Significant Quotations
"Somewhere beneath the lose of emotion-freezing ice which my life had conditioned my brain to produce, a black spot of anger glowed..." (259)

"A remote explosion had occurred somewhere, perhaps back at Emerson's or that night in Bledsoe's office, and it had caused the ice cap to melt and shift the slightest bit. But that bit, that fraction, was irrevocable" (259).

"I was wild with resentment but too much under 'self-control.' That frozen virtue, that freezing vice" (259).

Together, these three quotations show how self-control has frozen TIM into the lifestyle he that he has been living up to this point. Because of a few crushed dreams and the loss of identity, anger has found its way into his mind to melt down that controlling force in his life.

"And while the ice was melting to form a flood in which I threatened to drown I awoke one afternoon to find that my first northern winter had set" (260).

This quotation indicates that just before he has a complete melt down, TIM is able to bring himself together and refreeze some of that melted "ice cap" before it completely consumes him.