Invisible Man Chapter 20-22 Reading Questions

Chapter 20

1. The narrator has been away from Harlem for several months. What “emergency” calls him back downtown?

→ Brother Tod disappeared.

2. What changes have taken place in the movement since he left. (Note how things have changed in the Jolly Dollar Bar.)

→ The people have realized that the brotherhood is corrupt and want the white people to control the black community.

3. What does Ellison mean when he says that returning to Harlem was “like returning to the city of the dead?”

→ By saying this he means that he is returning to a society filled with corruptions. Since the brotherhood is controlling all of the people there, they don’t think for themselves.

4. What is Clifton selling?

→ Clifton is selling the sambo dolls

5. How does the Sambo doll relate to the Sambo bank?

→ It is supposedly used for entertainment.

6. What do you think the doll symbolizes? Consider the fact that it is a puppet whose strings are pulled.

→ The sambo doll symbolizes the power that the whites have over the black people and how the black people entertain them.

7. How does Tod Clifton die? What is the narrator’s reaction to his death?

→ Tod is shot by a police officer. The narrator feels like being in the brotherhood wasn’t worth it.

Chapter 21

1. Why does the narrator feel guilt over Clifton’s death?

→ He feels guilty for not stopping the cop.

2. Look at the funeral speech. How many times does the narrator use Clifton’s name? Why so many?

→ The narrator says Tod’s name 22 times. He says it so many times to emphasize that he was an important man.

Chapter 22

1. Why is the meeting with the Brotherhood described in terms of a dream?

→ The meeting is described as a dream because it symbolizes a way of progress.

2. On p. 463, the members are said to have “flowed in one channel too long and too deeply.” What does this mean?

→ The brotherhood was too focused on expanding and obtaining power rather than helping out the people in the community. The goal they had set was not being satisfied.

3. Why does the Brotherhood object to the phrase “personal responsibility?”

→ They are not focused on the people, they are more focused on obtaining power.

4. Contrast the reaction of The Brotherhood to the funeral speech to the audience’s reaction to the graduation speech. Has the narrator come full circle?

→ The brotherhood did not like the speech that the narrator was giving at Tod’s funeral. The narrator talks about having personal responsibility which upsets the members of the Brotherhood and therefore make them react negatively.

5. What is the significance of Brother Jack’s glass eye? How does it develop the sight image that is throughout the book?

→ The significance of Brother Jack’s glass eye is to show his blindness or failure to see the people around him as a human being. It shows that he really does not have any knowledge of the black community and is not helping the black community.