Throughout Invisible Man free will is more significant than fate. There are not very many instances in this novel
that involve fate; however, the novel is based around the narrator’s free will
and the restrictions surrounding it.
Although the narrator has free will, he tends to follow the path set out
for him by other people, limiting his identity to the stereotypes of black men
and to what other people tell him to be.
Tod Clifton’s Sambo doll represents
a certain stereotype of black men, but it also symbolizes how the prejudice that
whites have against blacks control the actions and ability to carry out free
will of black men. Also, the narrator’s
surgery after the Liberty Paints accident represents how whites have
manipulated him. During the surgery the
white doctors experiment on him and attempt to change his personality. When they use electricity he begins to dance,
which is part of the Sambo stereotype.
The white men force him to dance and abide by that stereotype while he
has no control. Similarly, the narrator
blindly follows the orders of Jack and the leaders of the brotherhood because
he believes it will benefit his race and cause change. Although he uses free will in his first
speech after the battle royal and in his speech at the eviction, the brotherhood
takes that free will away. During his
third speech, the narrator talks about the hardships his race has encountered,
but the leaders of the brotherhood warn him of going too far. Although the topic is of his liking, he is
restricted by the brotherhood. They want
him to make more “scientific” speeches, so that they reach their ultimate goal
of destroying the black community. The
brotherhood uses the narrator to achieve their own goal without the narrator
knowing, but he soon discovers that something suspicious is going on.
When Jack loses his false eye, it
becomes clear to the narrator that he should use his own free will to build his
identity. Before, his identity was built
by his college, Bledsoe, the stereotypes of whites, and his membership in the
brotherhood. Later, the narrator tries
to manipulate women to gain knowledge of the brotherhood, and he tries to
escape both the brotherhood and Ras, demonstrating his new use of free will. He falls into a hole and realizes that he has
been stuck in a hole his whole life, unable to build his own identity. He comes to terms with the world and how
people try to make a pattern out of the chaos of life. He learns from his past and does not come out
of the cellar until he understands that he can use his own free will to
determine his life.
This is an interesting question to apply to Invisible Man, Jessie. I'd like to see more analysis rather than summary in your blog post...it seems like you didn't feel very comfortable doing that yet. But think about fate simply as something unavoidable, and about fate as "character," and you have the basics of our book, don't you? Our hero cannot follow his own free will because he's locked into a racist stereotype, which overcomes and drowns whatever identity he might have built for himself out of the freedom to do so--a freedom which we take for granted.
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