Prologue ● People chose not to see him

● He lives in a basement, in a building

strictly for Whites
● He claims that he is going to solve the
problem
● He wants to feel music vibrations
● “That blackness is most black, brother
most black.” (9)
● Louis Armstrong said “What did I do
to be so black and blue?” (12)
● Silence is satisfying (13)
● “All sickness is not unto death, neither
is invisibility.” (14)
● He is not the ghost like or haunted type
of invisible
● It is advantageous to be unseen
● He often doubts if he really exists
● He beat a man up in the dark
● He desires to go to Harlem and get out
of the deep south

Chapter 1 ● He is not a freak of nature or history

● His grandparents had become equal
with Whites after the Civil War, even
with segregation
● He said is graduation speech about
Black Americans and how they are
advancing
● The white men are ignoring him and
laughing at him
● He has a dream of going to the circus
with his grandfather

Chapter 2 ● The college has a statue of it’s Black

founder
● He becomes the driver for Mr. Norton
● Mr. Norton is one of the White
founders who happens to be a
millionaire
● He takes him to cabins that were once
housed by slaves
● Mr.Norton doesn’t mind but the
narrator is regretting taking him there
● Jim Trueblood lives there
 ● Trueblood got his daughter pregnant
● Trueblood says it was just a dream
● He's getting money from the whites
even more after incest
● Norton gives him a $100 to buy things
for his kids

Chapter 3 ● He drives Mr. Norton to Golden Day

● It is a tavern and a brothel that serve
black people
● He fears that Norton might die of
shock
● Mentally ill veterans encounter them
● The narrator would like to get out fast
but they carry him in
● They give Norton whiskey and he
slowly comes back into consciousness
● A fight breaks out after the attendant
asks why the vets are yelling
● Norton is taken up to where the
prostitutes are after he becomes
unconscious for a second time
● Norton becomes angry after one of the
veterans who is a doctor, mocks him
● There is silence on the way back to the
college

Chapter 4 ● Norton is taken to his room and

requests a visit from the president of
the university Dr. Bledsoe
● He commands him to go to chapel that
evening and get out of Norton’s room
● Norton told Dr. Bledsoe that it was not
his fault that everything happened

Chapter 5 ● Rev. Homer Barbee is an African

American preacher who conducts the
service
● He talks about the founder
● The founder was a slave
● He was very intelligent but nobody
had any faith in him
● After going into a coma for nine days,
he woke up and educated himself
● He was no longer a slave and decided
 to go north
● The Reverend falls and the narrator
discovers he is blind

Chapter 6 ● Dr. Bledsoe is upset at the narrator for

driving Mr. Norton to the cabins,
meeting up with Trueblood and going
to Golden Day
● He says that the narrator should
already know how to get out of white
people’s commands as a black person
who grew up in the south
● He needs to question the veteran from
Golden Day who mocked Mr. Norton
● The narrator says he will expose Dr.
Bledsoe and tell everyone that he did
not keep the promise of not
disciplining him
● He says to go to New York and take a
job
● This way, he can pay a year's worth of
tuition
● If he succeeds at his job, he might be
able to return to the university

Chapter 7 ● He runs into the same veteran that

mocked Norton on the bus that is
going to New York
● Dr. Bledsoe wants the vet in a psych
hospital in DC
● He says to hide from whites
● There is an invisible man that is
“pulling his strings”
● There’s a black officer that is directing
traffic in New York
● In Harlem, there’s a gathering saying
they will “drive out the whites”
● He finds a Mens Room to avoid a riot

Chapter 8 ● He sends out the letters of

recommendation
● There is one for Mr. Emmerson, but
he doesn’t bring it to him
 ● He is refused from some of the
● secretaries
● His money is running out very fast
● He begins to doubt his decision to
move to New York City

Chapter 9 ● He meets Peter

● He compares him to Jack Rabbit and
the Bear
● He goes to a deli
● The waiter begins to stereotype him
and his order
● He orders orange juice, toast and
coffee
● Emerson's son offers him a job at the
Liberty Paints Plant
● Narrator wants revenge
● He gives the plant a call, and reports
the next day to the job

Chapter 10 ● Located in Long Island

● The sign read “Keep America Pure
with Liberty Paints (196)
● Make fun of him for being assistant
● He has anxiety over using Emerson’s
name without permission
● Mr. McDuffie interviewed him and
went to work for Mr. Kimbro
● The plant is large
● He is proud of the narrators work
making the white paint (202)
● He is suspecting that they are playing
him like Bledsoe did (206)
● He is sent to the basement to work
with Lucius Brockway
● He asks if he is an engineer
● He wants him to keep an eye on the
boiler
● He threatens to kill the narrator if he
doesn’t leave
● The narrator says that he is not a part
of the union
● They fight and Brockway bites him
 and loses his dentures
● The boiler explodes and he is
unconscious under goo and the
machinery

Chapter 11 ● He is given a pill at the hospital

● They would like to keep him there for
a couple of days
● They are interrogating him but he
complains about his head and the
glowing eye
● They tell him to be patient during the
x-ray
● He is in the factory hospital
● They are ready to release him
● He is encouraged to do a less physical
job because he is not ready to do
something demanding hard work
● He leaves feeling like an alien
● He is over the fear of people like
Bledsoe
● He goes to the subway station and gets
on a train to Harlem

Chapter 12 ● He is asked if he’s okay once he gets

off at Lenox Avenue
● He collapses
● He says he is weak
● Mary takes him in and he is given a
drink
● He falls asleep
● She wants to know why he is in New
York, instead of staying in the South
● He is being treated with hospitality
● He questions who he is and who he is
meant to be
● He wants to know how he became this
way

Chapter 13 ● He is trying to run away and he bumps

into a woman that calls him a filthy
name
● Harlem is quiet and snow covered
● He buys a yam (164)
● He becomes nostalgic for the south
 ● He buys two more yams and says “I
yam what I yam.”
● A black couple is being evicted
● He sees “knocking bones” and he
thinks they are blackface performers
● He thinks about his mom doing the
laundry in the freezing weather
● He gives a speech to the crowd asking
them to be black people to follow the
law
● He asks the white agent to let her pray
and he doesn’t
● He wants to know what happened to
the Provies
● They begin bringing the belongings
back inside
● The police are after him and he tries to
escape
● A white man takes him to a coffee
shop and wants him to be a
spokesperson
● He rejects him but takes Brother
Jack’s contact info
● It’s a cold night and he is thinking
about Mary, the offer and the Provos

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19