Summary: Chapter 22
The narrator returns to his office to find Brother Jack
and the other committee members waiting for him. They are angry
that he has associated the Brotherhood with the protest of Tod Clifton’s
death without the committee’s approval. Jack informs the narrator
that he was hired not to think but to talk—and to say only what
the Brotherhood tells him to say. The Brotherhood officially regards
Clifton as a traitor to the organization’s ideals—Jack cites the
group’s alleged objection to Clifton’s “anti-Negro” dolls—and would
never have endorsed the eulogy that the narrator gave.
The narrator replies that the black community has accused
the Brotherhood itself of betrayal. Jack says that the Brotherhood
tells the community what to think. The narrator accuses Jack of
trying to be the “great white father.” Just then, one of Jack’s
eyes—a false one—pops out of his head into a drinking glass on the
narrator’s desk. He informs the narrator that he lost the eye while
doing his duty, stating that his personal sacrifice proves his loyalty
to the Brotherhood and its ideals. The argument winds down, and
the committee takes its leave of the narrator. Jack instructs him
to see Brother Hambro (a white member of the organization) to learn
the Brotherhood’s new program.
Summary: Chapter 23
The Harlem community’s outrage over Clifton’s death continues
to build. The narrator passes Ras (once known as “Ras the Exhorter,” he
now calls himself “Ras the Destroyer”) giving a speech. Ras denounces
the Brotherhood for not following through with the momentum that
the funeral sparked. Two of Ras’s followers briefly scuffle with
the narrator, but the narrator escapes. In an attempt to disguise
himself and protect himself from further physical attack, the narrator
purchases a pair of sunglasses with dark green lenses. After he
puts them on, a woman walks up to him and addresses him as “Rinehart.”
The narrator replies that he is not Rinehart, and she tells him
to get away from her before he gets her into trouble.
The narrator augments his disguise with a large hat. As
he makes his way back to Ras’s meeting, several people address him
as “Rinehart” again. A woman on the street thinks that he is Rinehart,
her bookie; a prostitute thinks that he is Rinehart, her pimp; he
passes a gathering of people waiting for “Reverend Rinehart,” the
“spiritual technologist,” to hold a revival. The narrator is astounded
at his ignorance of Rinehart’s identity, with which apparently everyone else
in the community is familiar.
The narrator finally reaches Brother Hambro’s apartment.
Hambro informs him that the Brotherhood intends to sacrifice its
influence in the Harlem community to pursue other, wider political goals.
The narrator leaves Hambro’s apartment in a fury and decides to
follow his grandfather’s advice: he will “yes, agree, and grin the
Brotherhood to death.” He plans to assure the Brotherhood’s members
that the community stands in full agreement with their new policy
and to fill out false membership cards to inflate the Brotherhood’s
Harlem membership. He also plans to discover the committee’s real
goals by cultivating a relationship with a woman close to one of
the Brotherhood’s important leaders. He thinks that perhaps he should
try Emma, Jack’s mistress.
Analysis: Chapters 22–23
At this point in the novel, the narrator finally
loses the illusion that he can remain a free individual within the
Brotherhood. He learns that the condition for membership in the
Brotherhood is blind obedience to its ideology. Just as his college
hired him to show Mr. Norton only what the college wanted Mr. Norton
to see, the Brotherhood has hired him to say only what it wants
people to hear, to be like the dancing Sambo doll, playing a role
defined by the Brotherhood.
