Invisible Man Blindness Quotes

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Invisible Man Imagery Guide Part I 1) Blindness “’Cause we started stressing it from the first. We make the best paint in the world, I don’t give a damn what nobody says. Our white is so white you can paint a chunka coal and you’d have to crack it with a sledge hammer to prove it wasn’t white clear through” (Ellison 217)! This quotation can be directly taken from chapter ten of the novel. The quote is one stated by Lucius Brockway, a colored man in control of paint mixing and other activities in the Liberty Paint Factory, to our Narrator. This quote furthers Ellison’s purpose of exploring blindness by exploiting the most valuable property of the Optic White Paint, its ability to conceal the blackness of a piece of coal. In a different sense this quote is used as a metaphor …show more content…

This quote, cited from the prologue of the novel, strengthens Ellison’s purpose by supporting the assumption of the narrator that because the man was white and he was black the man did not actually “see” him. This is because during the novel the white people attempt to suppress the freedom of African American people. The narrator also states the man refused to see the narrator as a person but rather more of an object and therefore did not recognize the reality of the situation or the kerfuffle between the narrator and himself. 3) Stereotypes of Race “Who, Negroes? Negroes don’t control this school or much of anything else – haven’t you learned even that? No, sir, they support it, but I control it. I’s big and black and I say ‘Yes, suh’ as loudly as any burrhead when it’s convenient, but I am still the king down here” (Ellison

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