Study Questions & Essay Topics
Study Questions
1. Compare and
contrast the ideologies of the Brotherhood and the college. How
does each ideology breed blindness and invisibility? What conflicts
do they cause for the narrator?
2. Who is Rinehart?
What does he represent? What does he mean to the narrator?
3. What is
the role of treachery in the novel? Who betrays whom? How does treachery
relate to the motifs of blindness and invisibility?
Suggested Essay Topics
1. How does the division between
how the narrator perceives himself and how others perceive him relate
to the motifs of blindness and invisibility? Consider the role of
racial stereotypes in the novel.
2. How does the narrator's briefcase
encapsulate his history? Consider the contents of the briefcase.
Consider also the dream that he has about the briefcase after the
“battle royal.” How does the briefcase relate to the narrator's
position as a fugitive? What might the briefcase tell us about the
narrator's identity?
3. What does the extended metaphor
of dolls (the Sambo doll, for example, and the coin bank) mean?
What do they say about the power of racial stereotypes?
4. What does the veteran mean
when he tells the narrator, “Be your own father”? What is the role
of fathers or father figures in the novel? Think about the narrator's
accusation that Jack wants to be the “great white father” and the
description of the Founder's statue.
5. How does Ellison use irony
to underline the difference between surface appearances and what
lies beneath? Consider Ellison's literary treatment of Reverend
Barbee as one example. What are other examples?
6. What is the relationship
between individual identity and community identity? Is it possible
to remain true to both? Must the two always conflict? How does the
narrator fail or succeed to assert his individuality amid communities
such as the college, the Brotherhood, and Harlem?
