Stephen Mars

Ms.Fuller
Ap Eng Lit p1
March 15th ,2022

Biblical Allusion: “That night I found myself hearing not only in time, but in space as well. I not
only entered the music but descended, like Dante, into its depths.” (Pg 9, Prolog)(Dante’s
inferno)

Biblical Allusion: “…it’ll put you in glory, glory, oh my lawd, in the whale's belly” (Pg 10,
Prolog)(Jona was swallowed by the whale for being disobedient to god)

Historical Allusion: “I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born
days, a spy in the enemy’s country ever since I give up my gun back in Reconstruction” (chapter
1, pg 16)

Historical Allusion: “In the pre-invisible days I visualized myself as a potential Booker T.
Washington” (Chapter 1, pg 18)

Biblical Allusion: “You do? You feel no inner turmoil, no need to cast out the offending eye?”
(Pg 51, Chapter 2) (God says to cast out offending eye because of sin)

Historical Allusion: “He is too good to come in? Tell him we don’t Jimcrow nobody” (Chapter
3, pg 76)

Biblical Allusion: “Here’s a chair for the messiah” (Chapter 3, Pg 78)(reference to Christ)

Biblical Allusion: “You see, I told you that it would occur at 5:30, the creator has come”
(Chapter 3, Pg 79)(reference to Christ)

Biblical Allusion: “He’ll do your bidding, and for us blindness is his chief assets” (Chapter 3, pg
95)(defended to chaos)(inferno reference)
Biblical Allusion: “And I remember too, how we confronted those others this who had set me
here in Eden”(compares the college to Eden)(Chapter 5 pg 112)

Biblical allusion: “…guardian of the hot young women on the puritan benches who couldn’t see
your Jordans water for their steam” (Chapter 5 pg 114)

Biblical Allusion: “dividing his head form his body; his short arms crossed before his barrel, like
a black little Buddha’s” (Chapter 5, pg 118).

Biblical Allusion: “Rendering unto Caesar that which was Caesar, yes; but steadfastly seeking
for you that bright horizon” (Chapter 5 pg 120, Ceaser)

Biblical Allusion: “LET MY PEOPLE GO” (Moses reference for releasing the Jew population)
(Chapter 5 pg 120)

Biblical Allusion: “She knew the fire! She knew the fire that bruned without consuming My
God, yes!” (Chapter 5 pg 122)

Literary Allusion: “Reverend Homer A. Barbee” (refers to the blind poet who wrote the
Odyssey)(Chapter 5 pg 123)
—————————————End of Washington's Ideals

Historical Allusion: “but although the bus was empty, only the rear was reserved for us and
there was nothing to do but move back with them” (Chapter 7, pg 151)

Historical Allusion: Jim Crow (Ch 7 pg 155)

Historical Allusion: “And here I saw Negros who hurried along with leather pouches strapped to
their wrists. The reminded me fleetingly going prisoners carrying their leg irons as they escaped
from a chain gang”(Chapter 8, 164)(They are in the north, where slaves would escape to)

Biblical Allusion: “Last had been first- a good sign.” (Ch 9 pg 172)

Literary Allusion: “With us it’s still Jim and Huck Finn.” (Ch 9 pg 188)

Biblical Allusion: Ten drops of black paint = Ten Commandments (Ch 10 pg 199)
Biblical Allusion “Whoever I was, I was no Samson”——IM doesn’t wanna destroy the
machine (Chapter 11, 243)

Psychological Allusion: “You see, instead of severing the prefrontal lobe, a single lobe , that is,
we apply pressure int he proper degrees to the major centers of nerve control—our concept is
Gestalt—and the result is as complete a change of personality as you’ll find”. (Chapter 11, pg
236)(Gestalt refers to “wholeness” so perhaps this allusion refers trying to “complete” the
invisible man with a new personality/life)

Historical Allusion: “You mustn’t try to go too fast. You’re glad to be released are you not?”
“Oh yes, but how shall I live?” “Live?” His eyebrows raised and lowered. “Take another job,” he
said. “Something easier, quieter. Something for which you’re better prepared.” (Chapter 11, 246)
represents how people released from Slavery needed to survive without guidance

Biblical Allusion: “abstract game with the rules as obsolete as Noah’s Ark” (Chapter 12, pg 256)

Historical Allusion: “threw off a hot red of such intensity that had Lord Kevin known of its
existence, he would have had to revise his measurements” (Chapter 12, pg 259)(Lord Kevin was
a scientists of the nineteenth century and is best known today for inventing the international
system of absolute temperature)

Biblical Allusion: “And behind the film of frost etching the glass I saw two brashly painted
plaster images of Mary and ‘Jesus surrounded by dream books, love powders, God-is-love signs,
money-drawing oil, and plastic dice”(Chapter 13, pg 262)

Historical Allusion: “a faded tintype of Abraham Lincoln” (Chapter 13, pg 271)

Biblical Allusion: “Go down, Moses” and “Way down in Egypts land Tell dat ole pharaoh to let
ma colored folks sing” (Chapter 14, pg 312)

Historical Allusion: “John Browns body lies a-molding’ring in the grave…” (Chapter 16, pg
339)(John Brown was an American abolitionist)

Biblical Allusion: “Your start Saul, and end up Paul” (Ch 17, pg 381)(Saul was a Christian
killer, but changed his identity to Paul)

Biblical Allusion: “I waited nineteen years and then one morning when the river was flooding I
left.” (Allusion for Noahs Flood)
Historical Allusion: “We have here an extraordinary tactician, a Napoleon of strategy and
personal responsibility.” (Chapter 22, pg 464)

Historical Allusion: cops kin-folk and then him and that hoss shot up the street leaping like
heigho, the goddamn silver” (Chapter 25, pg 564)

Symbolism
“That invisibility to which I refer to occurs because of a particular disposition of the eyes of
those whom I come into contact” (Prologue pg 3)—>Invisibility refers to the lack of listening
and understanding from the other party IM is communicating with.

“Because I call my home a “hole” it is damp and cold like a grave; there are cold holes and
warm holes…”—>Hole references the allegory cave

1,369 bulbs—1369 symbolizes the strong message from the angels, telling you the importance
of serving your life purpose and mission in life. (Prolog, pg 7)

Black and Blue song (Prolog, pg 12)

“All ten of us climbed under the ropes and allowed ourselves to be blind-folded with broad bands
of white cloth” (Chapter 1, pg 21)—>Symbolizes being ignorant or blinded by white society
Gleaming calfskin briefcase (Chapter 1, pg 32)—>Later on learned that IM contains all the
memorable items he picks up throughout his journey of understanding his identity

Sambo doll (Chapter 1, pg 26)

White woman (Chapter 1 Pg18-19)

- represents the stereotypical sexulized white women black people cannot have

“I listened with fascination, my eyes glued to the white line dividing the highway as my thoughts
attempted to sweep back to the times of which he spoke” (Chapter 2, pg 39)
- White line represents the division between white and black, that white people make
the rules.

Symbol/Allusion: “Flocks of quail sailed up and over the field, brown, brown, sailing down,
blending” (Chapter 2, pg 44)(quail are bibilical symbol meaning to recoil in dread or terror, so
perhaps this sentence represents the lack of social progress and segregation)

“As we came to a side road I saw a team of oxen hitched to a broken wagon, the ragged driver
dozing on the seat beneath the shade of a clump of trees” (chapter 2, pg 40)
- symbolizes that poor white men are the most dangerous—comparison between a
educated black person and a poor white person

“The white folks took up for me. And the white folks took to comin out here to see us and talk to
us…wrote it all down in a book…”(pg 53 chapter 2)
- symbolizes how white people are trying to prove the savagery of black people

Golden Day—“Gold” representing the one day that white and black will be equal, basically a
sanctuary for the black community.

“Now even the rows of neat dormitories seemed to threaten me, the rolling lawns appearing as
hostile as the gray highway with its white dividing line” (Chapter 4, pg 99)

“Two teachers in dark suits talked decorously beside a broken fountain” (Chapter 4, pg
100)(Symbolizes means problems related to your health).

“Dr. Bledsoe said he wants to see you down at Rabb Hall” (Chapter 4, pg 107)
- This represents the narrator going down the “rabbit hole”

Founder=Moses—leads people to the desert—isn't promised the land because he got prideful
toward the end—promised land is in the north(Underground Railroad)(Chapter 5)
“Thin brown girl in white choir robe standing high against the organ pipes, herself become
before our eyes a pipe of contained, controlled, and sublimated anguish” (Chapter 5, pg 117)(Girl
symbolizes the control of white on black through the misfortune of music)

“Leg shackle” (Chapter 6 pg 141)—represents “progress”

7 letters—represents 7 days, 7 deadly sins, 7 virtues, holy number. (Chapter 6 pg 150)

————————————————————————End of Washington's Ideals

“His way of talking to Mr. Norton had been a foreshadowing of my misfortune—just as I sensed
it would be”(Chapter 7, 151)

“Freedom is symbolic ” (Chapter 7, 153)

“A flash of movement drew my eye to the side of the highway now, and I saw moccasin (snake)”
(Chapter 7, pg 156)—>Potential foreshadow of Bledsoe’s betrayal

Bible, cannot read Genesis, meaning IM cannot read about Eden—->Thinks about the college
(Chapter 8)

“I could make out the Statue of Liberty, her touch almost lost in the fog” (Pg 165, Chapter
8)—>Represent IM freedom not being applied to him

3 days—->resurrection of Christ (Chapter 8, pg 170)

Blonde white girl symbol (Chapter 9, pg 177) as seen before —-> “And what will be his or any
man’s most accessible symbol of freedom? Why, a woman, of course.” (Chapter 7 Pg 153)

Liberty Paints—>Racism (Chapter 10)

Screaming eagle—> symbol of power over others/ nazi/ kkk symbol (

Chapter 10, pg 198)

“A man was looking at me out of a bright third eye that glowed from the center of his forehead”
(Chapter 11, pg 231)(symbolizes enlightenment, and illuminati)

Yam—>Represents the South and freedom (Chapter 13)

“”The yam and threw it onto the street; it had been frostbitten”(Chapter 13, pg
267)——>represents “rotten” saying Eden is not as big as a paradise as he thought

3 white men and 3 black horses—>( Chapter 16, pg 337)

Color white lines and building—>who is in control of the country (With the highway, with the
company, and in chapter 16)

“I went across the room to a torn photograph tacked to the faded wall. It was a shot, in fighting
stance, of a former prizefight champion, a popular fighter who had lost his sight in the ring.”
(Chapter 16, pg 334)

“As I looked at the alley, caused me to remember a great abandoned hole that had been the site of
the sports arena that had burned before my birth…the hole was used for dumping, and after a
rain it stank with stagnant water” (Chapter 16, pg 336)

“Let’s make a miracle! Let’s take back our pillaged eyes! Let’s reclaim our sight…”(Chapter 16,
pg 344)

“Look at you two and look at me—is this sanity? Standing in three shades of blackness! Three
black men fighting in the street because of white enslavers?” —>holy trinity (number 3)(Chapter
17, pg 372)

Leg chains—> first one is pristine and “America” freed Black men, no need to force open. The
second chain presented by Tarp is that he has to free himself, it has been forced open. (Chapter
18)

“It was a symbolic poster of a group of heroic figures: An American Indian couple, resenting the
disposed past; a blond brother (in overalls) and a leading Irish sister, representing the disposed
present; and Brother Tod Clifton and a young white couple (it had felt unwise simply to show
Clifton and the girl) surrounded by a group of children of mixed races, representing the future, a
color photograph of bright skin texture and smooth contrast” (Chapter 18, pg 385)

“Nineteen years, six months, two days” (Chapter 18, pg 387)(19 represents that people who have
faith in divine forces will have better lives, six means Man's flaws, satanic manifestations, and
misdeeds, and 2 represents union, division or the verification of facts by witnesses)

Women represents the symbolic of life and famine fertility, and the slave owners wives (Chapter
19, pg 409)
“And then she reappeared in the rich red of a hostess gown she was so striking that I had to avert
my somewhat startled eyes” (Chapter 19, pg 411)(Red symbolizes love or sexual attraction)

3 cops—>Holy trinity(Pg 437)

“And now I looked around a corner of my mind and saw Jack and Norton and Emerson merge
into a single white figure” (Chapter 23, pg 508)

“I know that I can trust you. I just knew you’d understand; you’re not like other men. We’re kind
of alike” (Chapter 24, pg 520)(Meaning that both Women and IM are repressed)

“There was something I had to do and I knew that my forgetfulness wasn't real, as one
knows that the forgotten details of certain
dreams are not truly forgotten but evaded” (Chapter 25, pg 537)

“They organized it and carried it through alone; the decision of their own and their own
action. Capable of their own action…” (Chapter 25, pg 548)

“The briefcase swung heavy against my leg as I ran” (Chapter 25, pg 553)

“They moved in a tight-knit order, carrying sticks and clubs, shotguns and rifles, led by
Ras the Exhortor becomes Ras the destroyer upon a great black horse” (Chapter 25, pg
556)

“But the definition would have been too narrow; I was invisible, and hanging would not
bring me to visibility, even to their eyes…” (Chapter 25, pg 559)

“Then I tried to find the usual ladder that lead to out to such holes, but there were none. I
had to have a light, and now on my hands and knees, holding tight to my briefcase.”
(Chapter 25, pg 567)

“And I realized that to light my way out I would have to burn every paper in the brief
case.” (Chapter 25, pg 567-568)

“That’s enough, don’t kill yourself. You’ve run enough, you’re through with them at last”
(Chapter 25, pg 568)
“Certainly not the freedom of a Rinehart, or the power of a Jack, nor simply the freedom
not to run. No, but the next step I couldn’t make, so I’ve remained in the hole” (Epilogue,
pg 575)

“Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?”(Epilogue, pg 581)
Archetypal Characters
Grandfather—wise guy—Prologue

Tatlock—Tat;lock—>Locking in fighting (Chapter 1)

College Founder= Embodiment of Brook Washington beliefs (Chapter 2)

Norton= White man's selfishness and ignorance (chapter 2)

Jim Trueblood: represents the past for the black community and inferiority of the white
community

Dr. Bledsoe: ideal black man

Emerson: Abolitionist

Supercargo—Giant guy, takes care of patients when they get out of hand (chapter 3)

Burnside(Veteran): Was a doctor in WW1 (Brain surgeon)—represents the speaker of wisdom

and truth like the grandfather(kinda a symbol as well)

Reverend Homer A. Barbee—Author of the Odyssey—Blind Poet

—————————————End of Washington's Ideals
Crenshaw—>Voices free thoughts (veteran attendant)

Kimbro- Slave Driver (Betrayer of Race)

Mary Rambo—Virgin Mary, one letter from Sambo—Saves IM, the typical kind woman who is
the motherly figure.

Brother Jack—>represents the conflicting ideologies of the African Americans

Brother Hambro(Sambro)—He is in charge of indoctrination—indoctrinate of study for IM

Brother Tarp—> covers himself in tarp

Brother Tod Clifton—> in charge swaying women because he is good looking

Brother Wrestrum—>“wrest”—>force something away from someone else—>tries to take
away IM power from brotherhood

Brother Tobitt—>Represents a white man married to a black woman, someone who uses black
community to up his status.

Rineheart—>multiple identities like IM

Sybil—> Greek mythology seer—>Aeneas leads into the underworld

Motifs (recurring theme)

- “To whom it may concern, keep this nigger-boy running”
- Music—shows that nothing good happens following music
- Brief-case
- Treachery
- White-man burden
- Blindness
- Invisibility
- Incest
- Color
- White related items
- Dream
- Red hair
 - Going underground and holes——>Allegory Cave reference
- Identity
- Stereotype
- Unconscious/dreams
- Sacrifice
- racism
- Society
-

Epithets
1. “Sambo”—very racist name for black people—a word that black people do whatever
white people want.
2. “Bring up the shines, gentlemen! Bring up the little shines!” (Pg 18)(Shines=black men)
3. Boy(racist)
4. Coon—Racoon
5. Rabb Hall (Rabbit Hall)
6. Jack the Bear
7. Brer Rabbit
8. Buckeye the Rabbit
9. Tar Baby (Racist)
10. Patty—Irish racist name
11. Uncle Tom—>Your a betrayer of your race
12. School-boy (Chapter 3)
13. “Look, Sylvester, It’s Thomas Jefferson!” (Chapter 3, pg 77)(This is implying that Mr.
Norton is similar to Jefferson in aspects of sexual desire and slavery)
14. Junior (pg 437) (term for the youth when a black elder would speak to youth of same
race)’
Literary Devices

Characterization/symbol: “He was a tall blond man, and as my face came close to his he
looked insolently out of his blue eyes…”(Prologue pg 4)—>Blond hair and blue eyes are the
stereotypical white American.

Epigram: “But that’s getting too far ahead of the story, almost to the end, although the end is in
the beginning and lies far ahead”(Prologue, pg 6)

Repetition: “my hole is warm and full of light. Yes full of light” (Prologue pg 6)

Chiasmus: “the truth is the light, the light is the truth” (Prologue, pg 7)

Alliteration: “Responsibility rests upon recognition, recognition is a form of agreement”

(Prologue pg 14)

Parallelism: “I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I,
and only I, could answer” (Chapter 1 pg 15)

Epigram: “…in which I showed that humility was the secret, indeed, the very essence of
progress” (Chapter 1, pg 17)
Paradox: “to caress her, to destroy her, to love her and murder her, to hide from her, and yet to
stroke where the small american flag tattooed on her belly her thighs formed a captital V”
(Chapter 1, pg 19)

Veil imagery: “The smoke of a hundred cigars clinging to her like the thinnest of veils” (Chapter
1, pg 19)

Allegory: “I’ve recalled it often, here in my hole: How the grass turned green in the springtime
and how the mocking birds fluttered their tails and sang…”(Chapter 2, pg 34)(Allegory
cave——>describes how his cave or metaphorical eden is amazing and heavenly).

Veil Imagery: “His hands outstretched in the breath-taking gesture of lifting a veil that flutters in
hard, metallic folds above the face of a kneeling slave” (chapter 2, pg 36)

Metaphor/symbolism: “photographs of men and women in wagons drawn by mule teams and
oxen, dressed in black, dusty clothing, people who seemed almost without individuality, a black
mob that seemed to be waiting, looking with blank faces, and among them the inevitable
collection of white men and women in their smiles, clear of features, striking, elegant and
confident” (Chapter 2, pg 39) (This represents how the history of the black community is
disappearing, the efforts of African Americans are slowly disappearing while being replaced with
the distinct efforts of the white community.)

Repetition: “You are my fate” (chapter 2, pg 42)(repeats throughout the chapter)

Imagery/characterization: “A girl, my daughter. She was a being more rare, more beautiful,
purer, more perfect, and more delicate than the wildest dream of a poet…her beauty was a
well-spring of purest water of life.” (Chapter 2, pg 42)(This particular description of Mr.
Norton’s daughter gives an incest desire vibe)

Symbol/Allusion: “Flocks of quail sailed up and over the field, brown, brown, sailing down,
blending” (Chapter 2, pg 44)(quail are bibilical symbol meaning to recoil in dread or terror, so
perhaps this sentence represents the lack of social progress and segregation)

Paradox: “I done the worst thing a man could possibly do in his family, and instead of chasin me
out of the country, they gimme more help than they have to any colored man” (Chapter 2, pg 46)

Allegory: Golden Day (bar)—second floor has prostitute

Epigram: “A trustee of consciousness” (chapter 3, pg 89)

Metaphor: “Nothing has meaning. He takes in but he doesn’t digest it. Already he is…oh bless
my soul! Behold! A walking zombie!” (Chapter 3, pg 94)(Essentially comparing IM as a zombie,
someone who just blindly follows orders)

Simile: “My predicament struck me like a stab” (Chapter 4, pg 99)

Veiling imagery: “Above a spacious fireplace an oil portrait of the Founder looked down at. Me
remotely, benign, sad, and in that hot instant, profoundly disillusioned. Then the veil seemed to
fall.” (Chapter 4, pg 103)

Paradox: “But in the hereness of dusk I am moving toward the doom like bells through the
flowered air, beneath the rising moon” (Chapter 5 pg 110)

Juxtaposition: The shaded lamp catching the lenses of his glasses left half of his broad face in
the shadow as his clenched fists stretched full forth in the light before him” (chapter 6, pg 137)

Epigram and parallelism: “power doesn’t show off. Power is confident, self-assuring,
self-starting, and self-stopping, self-warming, and self-justifying” (chapter 6 pg 142)

Paradox: “If they want to tell the truth a lie, they can tell it so well it becomes the truth” (Chapter
6, pg 143)

Paradox: “Your nobody son. You don’t exist—can’t you see that?” (Chapter 6 pg 143)

Simile: “For three years I has thought of myself as a man and here with a few words he’d make
me as helpless as an infant” (Chapter 6, pg 144)

—————————————End of Washington's Ideals

Repetition: Play the game (Chapter 7, pg 153)

Veiling imagery: “Come out of the fog, young man. And remember you don’t have to be a
complete fool in order to succeed” (Chapter 7, pg 153)

Diction/Repetition: They (Chapter 7, pg 154)

Epigram: “There is crime in freedom” (Chapter 7, pg 155)

Simile: “Beyond the door was like a museum” (Chapter 9, pg 180)

Foreshadow: “An open-book, something called “Totem and Taboo”” (Chapter 9, pg 180)

Simile: “The room was as quiet as a tomb” (Chapter 9, pg 181)

Simile: “The elevator dropped me like a shot” (Chapter 9, pg 193)

Diction: “Optic White”—>Optic—>Means of or relating to vision or the eye—>Relates to

blindness motif (Chapter 10, pg 217)

“Why not a Castration doctor?” (Chapter 11, 236)

Paradox: “My mind was blank, as though I had just begun to live” (Chapter 11, pg 233)

Simile: A pair of eyes peered down through lenses as thick as the bottom of a coca-cola bottle,
eyes protruding, luminous, and veined, like an old biology specimen preserved in alcohol”
(Chapter 11, pg 235)

Metaphor: “and I focused upon the teetering scene with wild, infants eyes” (chapter 12, pg 251)

Chiasmus: “I’m in New York, but New York ain’t in me” (Chapter 12, pg 255)

Juxtaposition: “but now a new, painful, contradictory voice has grown up within me, and
between its demands for revengeful action and Mary’s silent pressure I throbbed with guilt and
puzzlement” (Chapter 12, pg 259)(Devil on the shoulder)

Epigram/Foreshadowing: “You right, but everything what looks good ain’t necessarily good”
(Chapter 13, pg 264)

Repetition: “We are law-abiding people and a slow-to-anger people” (Chapter 13, pg 275-277)

Repetition/Diction: “Wise”(Chapter 13, pg 276)

Personification: “I lay listening as the sound flowed to and around me” (Chapter 14)

Hyperbole: “Intrigued and intriguing, but we are dying of thirst” (Chapter 14, pg 302)

Diction/Repetition: “With these people I'll have to be careful. Always careful. With all people
i'll have to be careful” (chapter 14, pg 303)
Paradox: “But on the other hand, it would be a great mistake to assume that the dead are
absolutely powerless. They are powerless only to give the full answer to the new questions posed
for the living by history” (Chapter 14, pg 306)

Personification: “The clock ticked with empty urgency, as though trying to catch up with the
time” (Chapter 14, pg 317)

Veil imagery—>”It was as though a semi-transparent curtain has dropped between us” (chapter
16, page 341)

Epigram: “Silence is consent” (Chapter 16, pg 345)

Simile: “Blurred figures bumped about me. I stumbled as in a game of blind mans bluff…”
(Chapter 16, 347)

Chiasmus: “Master it, don’t let it master you” (Chapter 17, pg 359)

Paradox: “It is very strict, but under the framework you are to have full freedom to do your
work” (Chapter 17, pg 360)

Simile: “My name spread like smoke in an airless room” (Chapter 17, pg 380)

Paradox: “For now I had begun to believe, despite all the talk of science around me, that there
was magic in spoken words” (Chapter 17, pg 381)

Epigram—>”Life was all pattern and discipline; and the beauty of discipline is when it
works. And it was working very well” (Chapter 17, pg 382)

Metaphor—>”You are from the South and you know that this is a white mans world.” (Chapter
18, pg 383)

Personification—>”I shot to my feet, the paper rattling poisonously in my hands” (Chapter 18,
pg 383)

Diction—> “But why do you give it to me, Brother Tarp?” “Because I have to, I guess”(Chapter
18, pg 389)
Metaphor—> “I’m not hero and I’m far from the top; I’m a cog in a machine. We here in the
Brotherhood work as a unit” (Chapter 18, pg 396)

Paradox——> “I was heading for the door, torn between anger and a fierce excitement, hearing
the phone click down as I started past and feeling her swirl against me and I was lost, for the
conflict between the ideologies and biological, duty and desire, had become too subtly confused”
(Chapter 19, pg 416)

Veiling imagery: “in one swift motion the red tone swept aside like a veil…”(Chapter 19, pg
416)

Simile/symbolism: “There was a flash of whiteness and a splatter like heavy rain striking a
newspaper and I saw the doll…” (Chapter 20, pg 433)

Foreshadow: “I examined it, strangely weightlss in my hand, half expecting to feel it pulse to
life. It was a still frill paper” (Chapter 20, pg 434)

Simile: “Clifton soun on his toes like a dancer…”(Chapter 20, pg 436)

Syntax: “Everything seemed to slow down. A pool formed slowly on the walk. My eyes blurred.
I raised my head. The cop looked at me curiously.”(Chapter 20, pg 436)

Repetition: “Go home” (Chapter 21, pg 455)

Repetition: “His name was Clifton” (Chapter 21, pg 455)

Chiasmus: “He was standing and he fell. He fell and he kneeled. He kneeled and he bled. He
bled and he died.” (Chapter 21, pg 456)

Metaphor: “His name was Tod Clifton and he was full of illusions” (Chapter 21, pg 457)

Veil Imagery: “But what’s that to do with you in this heat under the veiled sun?” (Chapter 21, pg
458)

Reception: “Personal Responsibility” (Chapter 22, pg 463)

Metaphor: “I misjudged you. You have our number. In fact, you must be practically a Negro
yourself, Was it by immersion or injection?” (Chapter 22, pg 468)
Metaphor: “My hand was in my pocket now, Brother Tarps leg chain around my
knuckles.”(Chapter 22, pg 473)(IM is breaking free of social restraints)

Metaphor: “A glass eye. A buttermilk white eye distorted but the light rays” (chapter 22, pg 474)

Simile: “the light of the cars glowed like stars” (Chapter 23, pg 484)

Metaphor: “Behold the invisible.” (Chapter 23, pg 495)

Alliteration/Polysyndeton: “Rine the runner and Rine the gambler and Rine the briber and Rine
the lover and Rinehart the Reverend” (Chapter 23, pg 498)

Paradox: “But hell I was both. Both sacrificer and victim” (Chapter 23, pg 506)

Paradox: “the mere glimmer of light, but behind the polished and humane facade of Jack’s eye
I’d found an amorphous form and a harsh red rawness. And even that was without meaning
except for me. Well, I was and yet I was invisible, that was the fundamental contradiction”
(chapter 23, pg 507)

Chiasmus: “I was my experiences, and my experiences were me.”(Chapter 23, pg 508)

Metaphor: “They were blind, moving only by the echoes sounds of their own voices. And
because they were blind they would destroy themselves and I’d help them” (Chapter 23, pg 508)

Repetition: I ran blindly, boiling with outrage and despair and harsh laughter. Running
from the birds to what, I didn’t know. I ran. I ran through the night, ran within myself. I
Ran.” (Chapter 24, pg 534)

Simile: “There was a sudden and brilliant suspension in time, like the interval between the
last ax stroke and the felling of the tree.” (Chapter 25, pg 535)

Metaphor: “It was my briefcase, extended to me by its handles. I seized it with sudden
panic, as though something infinitely precious had almost been lost to me” (Chapter 25, pg
537)(this refers to IM’s identity)

Simile/personification/metaphor: “Up the street there sounded the crashing of huge sheets
of glass and through the blue mysteriousness of the dark the walks shimmered like
shattered mirrors”(Chapter 25, pg 537)
Simile: “and suddenly, everyone paused, turning, looking off into the dark, an air hammer
pounding like a machine gun” (Chapter 25, pg 546)

Metaphor/simile: “Now I was tired, too tired; my mind retreating, the image of the two
glass eyes running together like blobs of melting led” (chapter 25, pg 566)

Simile/Metaphor: “Once you get used to it, reality is as irresistible as a club, and I was
clubbed into the cellar before I caught the hint” (Epilogue, pg 572)

Juxtaposition: “When on is invisible he finds such problems as good and evil, honesty and
dishonesty, of such shifting shapes that he confuses one with the other, depending upon who
happens to be looking through him at the time” (Epilogue, pg 572)