1. Motif Strand

2. n Occurs in Prologue n While under the influence of the reefer and Louie Armstrong’s music, Invisible Man dreams of a black woman in congregation who tells how she loved her white master but killed him with poison so her sons wouldn’t kill him with their knives.

3. n “That night I found my self hearing not only in time, but in space as well. I not only entered the music but descended, like Dante, into its depths” (9). The Reefer Dream

4. In this dream he encounters what slavery was like. He has a conversation with an old black woman who he asked to describe this freedom which she loved so well. The information that is revealed to him in this dream demands action, but he does not yet know what to do. The Reefer Dream

5. “So under the spell of the reefer I discovered a new analytical way of listening to music. The unheard sounds came through, and each melodic line existed of itself, stood out clearly from all the rest, said its piece, and waited patiently for the other voices to speak”(8- 9).

6. n Occurs in Chapters 1, 6, 8, 14, 16, 18, 22, 23, and the Epilogue. n n The grandfather told the narrator’s father to undermine the whites with “yeses” and “grins” and advised his family to “agree ’em to death and destruction” (16).

7. “Son, after I am gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all of my born days, a spy in the enemies country ever since I give up my gun back in the reconstruction” (16 ). Curse Grandfather’s Curse

8. The narrator has a dream of going to a circus with his grandfather, who refuses to laugh at the clowns. His grandfather instructs him to open the briefcase. Inside the narrator finds an official envelope with a state seal. Chapter 1 Dream

9. He opens it only to find another envelope, itself containing another envelope. The last one contains an engraved document reading: “To Whom It May Concern... Keep This Nigger-Boy Running.” The narrator wakes with his grandfather’s laughter ringing in his ears. Chapter 1 Dream(cont.)

10. n “It became a constant puzzle which lay unanswered in the back of my mind” (16). n The grandfather felt like a traitor. n Narrator has a dream in which he goes to a circus with his grandfather who gives the narrator a briefcase, which contains a document that says, “To Whom It May Concern, Keep This Nigger-Boy Running” (33). Grandfather’s Curse

11. n In Chapter 6, the narrator realizes that Bledsoe uses the same mask of meekness to deceive powerful white donors to his advantage, and recognizes his grandfather’s sentiment that true treachery lies in the mask of meekness. Grandfather’s Curse

12. n In Chapter 8, the narrator dreams of his grandfather and “awoke depressed” (170). He felt that Bledsoe and Norton were scheming against him. n In Chapter 14, the narrator thinks back to when his grandfather had to quote the entire U.S. Constitution “as a test of his fitness to vote” (315). Grandfather’s Curse

13. n In Chapter 16, the narrator realized that he still has a part of him that is like his grandfather, “the traitor self that always threatened internal discord” (335). n In the Epilogue, the narrator struggles to find the deeper meaning behind his grandfather’s advice. Grandfather’s Curse

14. n Trueblood tells the narrator and Mr. Norton of a dream that caused him to have sexual relations with his daughter. n Mr. Norton became very troubled by this dream, which led to the incident at the Golden Day.

15. Trueblood ends up impregnating his daughter in his sleep. The black people scold him for his mistake but he receives help and care from the white men of the town. This stereotypically symbolizes what whites think black men are like. Trueblood’s Dream

16. n “I looked at Mr.. Norton and stood up, thinking that now was a good time to leave; but he was listening to Trueblood so intensely he didn’t see me, and I sat down again, cursing the farmer silently. To hell with his dream”(57)! Trueblood’s Dream

17. Trueblood’s Dream Afterwards n Trueblood’s dream of incest leads to: –Mr. Norton almost dies thus leading to the Golden Day –Golden day problems – Invisible Man’s confrontation with Dr. Bledsoe –Invisible Man gets expelled –Invisible Man forced to New York

18. The Founder’s Dream n In Chapter 5, Homer Barbee addresses the student body of the college that the Invisible Man is attending, telling about the Founder’s vision of the ideal college for African-Americans.

19. “New York! That’s not a place, it’s a dream. Now all the little black boys run away to New York. Your speech will change, you’ll talk a lot about ‘college’..... You might even dance with a white girl” (152)!

20. New York is supposed to be the place where young black men are treated as equals. The Invisible Man wants to start over and make a better life for himself. New York City

21. –Young Emerson lets IM read recommendation letter from Bledsoe; finds out that why he can’t get a job. –Work at paint plant troublesome –Gets blown up in plant explosion –Can’t get job after explosion, has no money.

22. Dream of Revenge n “When I stopped, gasping for breath, I decided that I would go back and kill Bledsoe. Yes, I thought, I owe it to the race and to myself. I’ll kill him”(194). n Bledsoe has told each of the addressees that the IM has earned permanent expulsion and that Bledsoe had to send him away under false pretenses in order to protect the college.

23. Dream of Revenge(cont.) n Bledsoe requests that the narrator be allowed to “continue undisturbed in [his] vain hopes [of returning to college] while remaining as far as possible from our midst”(191).

24. Dream of Revenge(cont.) n The Invisible Man leaves the office full of anger and a desire for revenge. He imagines Bledsoe requesting that Emerson “hope the bearer of this letter to death and keep him running”(194).

25. n In Chapter 11, the Invisible Man is in the hospital, due to an accident at the factory in which he works. His doctors put him in a clear, coffin-like box. While he is there, the doctors ask him his name, where he is from, and who his mother is. Because of the medicine the doctors give him for pain his thoughts were impaired.

26. “I was struggling and breaking through, rising up, to find myself lying on my back with two pink-faced men laughing down” (232). The Machine Dream

27. The Dream Book n In Chapters 13, 15 and 17, references are made to The Seeing Eye, The Great Constitutional Dream Book, The Secrets of Africa, and The Wisdom of Egypt. The Invisible Man learns about dream books, where men actually record their dreams in a journal. Some men believed that their dreams had a true significance.

28. n “I lay the prisoner of a group consisting of Jack and old Emerson and Bledsoe and Norton and Ras and the school superintendent and a number of others whom I failed to recognize, but all of whom had run me, who now pressed around me as I lay beside a river of black water, near where an armored bridge arched sharply away to where I could not see”(567).

29. Chapter 25 n He sleeps and dreams of Jack, Emerson, Bledsoe, Norton, and Ras. The men mock him, castrate him, and declare that they have stripped him of his illusions. He wakes with their cries of anguish and fury ringing in his ears. He decides to stay underground and affirms, “The end was in the beginning.”

30. “And now I looked around a corner of my mind and saw Jack and Norton and Emerson merge into one single white figure” (508). Jack, Norton, and Emerson

31. The Invisible Man finally embraces his Grandfather’s curse. All of those three men tried to make him see and believe their point of view and didn’t care what he thought about it. They were using him.

32. “You go along for years knowing something is wrong, then suddenly you discover you’re as transparent as air” (575).

33. The Invisible Man has spent so much time trying to fix his life, but he realizes that he never really mattered and he ended up back at the beginning.