Rinehart and the Beginning of Invisibility

In class, we have often talked about how the narrator is unable to make his own decisions, and is being “kept running” by society. These points were all important and valid up until the narrator’s scene pretending to be Rinheart in which he forges his own world and finds his invisibility. I feel that this is a crucial scene in the story, as it marks a major shift in how the narrator makes his decision. Up until this scene, the narrator finds himself a pawn in a cruel game and by taking control of Rinheart’s identity, he plays his own game.

Leading up to the narrator’s encounter with invisibility and Rinehart, he was never truly in charge of his actions. Starting all the way back to his time in the arena and his speech, when he is mocked and given a scholarship to “keep this boy running”. There is the game with Bledsoe and the fake letters of recommendation, and then the narrator joins the brotherhood.

When we were first introduced to the brotherhood, I felt like it may be a good turn, but as the narrator gains power in the organization we see more of the bad side. We know that he is only really given the job because of his race, and that he is being controlled just like dolls being sold by Clifton. We can see that for much of the narrator’s life he has constantly been part of a game played by society on him, and the scene when he becomes Rinheart is the turning point when he gains some agency.

The reason the narrator initially pretends to be Rinehart stems from the fear that Ras the Exhorter would hurt him. In response to the threat of Ras’ angry followers, the narrator buys dark glasses from the store. Starting only as a disguise, the narrator is mistaken for Rinehart for the first time when trying to get a cab. This first interaction is crucial because the narrator realizes that he can control the way people see him. The narrator realizes the potential, saying “With this [the hat], I thought, I should be seen even in a snowstorm – only they’d think I was someone else” (484).

With this realization, the game is on, and this time the narrator is playing it. He begins to walk around, testing his disguise and his invisibility. He begins by walking straight through Ras the Destroyer’s rally, and he “trembled with excitement; they hadn’t recognized me. It works, I thought. They see the hat, not me. There is a magic in it. It hides me right in front of their eyes” (485). The narrator realizes this opportunity allows him to be someone else, and not have to worry about what he does (whether or not he eats the yam) or who he truly is. This is his chance to truly make his own decisions.

This weird sequence of events in which the narrator pretends to be someone else is important in how it relates to the invisibility talked about in the prologue. The invisibility that “occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of the inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality” (3). This invisibility is what we have been waiting for since the prologue, and finally we see it in the narrator as he pretends to be Rinehart. Ellison even does his best to remind us of the invisibility through a handbill the narrator picks up that says “Behold the Invisible” (495). And now that we have reached this point in the novel, I think we can all behold the invisible narrator as he comes full circle to the man we met in the prologue.