Prologue Expresses the need for constant

light, or unhindered vision. By remaining unseen while

being able to see the rest of the world perfectly he feels some kind of superiority.

Because he is living in the “light,” he can accept invisibility as part of his identity.

Chapter 1

Before he understands that he is “invisible”, he sees the world in a “smoke of a hundred cigars.”

He feels ashamed that he cannot help but watch the dancer and sees her through a smoky “veil,” just as he sees the rest of the world.

Chapter 2“In my minds’ eye I see

the bronze statue of the college founder... unable to decide whether the veil is being lifted or lowered more firmly in place” (36).

Chapter 3

“He’s Invisible, a walking personification of the Negative” (94).

“Then in a twinkling of my eyes it was gone” (100).

Chapter 4

•In one moment he sees the school through his tears like a mirage.•It seems like a sort of Eden.

Chapter 5Topic Page QuoteStudents/Society

123 “distortingcataract oftears”

Isolation/Distance

126 “ I watched themen of honorslowly shaketheir spellboundheads.”

Blindness 133 “the blinking ofsightless eyes”

“...the race needs good, smart, disillusioned fighters” (145).

The founder seems to constantly watch over Bledsoe and the narrator as they argue.

He’s gradually becoming “disillusioned”

Chapter 7...learn to look beneath the surface...Come our of the fog, young man...You’re hidden right out in the open...they wouldn’t see you because they don’t expect you to know anything...

This seems to become his mission later in the book.

Chapter 8...even when they were polite they hardly saw me...I did not know if it was desirable or undesirable” (168).

This is the first time he’s really felt invisible. He will believe later that not only is it desirable, but completely necessary.

Chapter 9“...the sun burned warm upon my eyes.”

“...I rubbed my eyes, and they felt sandy as though all the fluids had suddenly dried.”

His eyes reflect the confidence he feels as he heads toward Mr. Emerson’s office.

His eyes hurt when he becomes “disillusioned”.

Confidence

Confusion

Chapter 10“I hurried with the others through the fog” (196). He can’t see what he’s getting into when

he first arrives at the factory.

“And in that clear instant of consciousness I opened my eyes to a blinding flash” (230). When he leaves the factory, after the

explosion, he has more knowledge of the world and it’s inequalities in work.

Chapter 16•In his speech he tells the crowd that they must regain their sight because blindness has caused oppression and racial division.

• As he stumbles away from the platform, he feels blind himself. (The blind leading the blind...)

Chapter 22

Just like Rev. Barbee, Brother Jack is blind as well. In fact, it seems that all the members of the Brotherhood are blind to their own beliefs. In an attempt to reject racism, they’re creating it. Brother Jack’s glass eye represents an attempt to hide the blindness of the Brotherhood.

Chapter 23

•By putting on the sun glasses while disguised as Rinehart, the narrator enters another world, or at least gains the ability to see the world differently. •He decides while wearing the glasses that even while he is invisible to others, he will remain visible to himself.