Invisible Man Chapters 23 and 24 Reading Questions

Chapter 23

1. What symbolism do you find in the narrator’s purchase of dark glasses?

→ The dark glasses symbolizes the different identities and the stereotypes as it correlates to Rinehart that has many different disguises.

2. What are Rinehart’s various identities?

→ Briber, pimp, gambler

3. Is there any symbolism in Rinehart’s name (rind and heart)?

→ Rind is the hard layer on a fruit and hart sounds similar to heart. A hard heart. It means that Rinehart doesn’t care about anyone and is a person that no one really knows who he is.

4. Has Rinehart learned to play an identity game?

→ He has learned to play the identity game by having different disguises and hiding his real self.

Chapter 24

1. Contrast the narrator’s encounter with Sybil with that of the woman in red whose husband came home early.

→ Sybil and the women in the red are both married women. Sybil is drunk when she tells the narrator about how she feels about him while the women in the red is not. The women in the red actually sleeps with the narrator while Sybil does not.

2. What is the significance of the last line in the chapter?

→ The significance of the last line of Chapter 24 was to show the narrator’s thoughts after leaving the brotherhood. He becomes comfortable with being invisible again.