Be True To Thyself

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Once the invisible man goes off to college he begins to act in a manner to please Mr. Norton. Not only does Mr. Norton not identify with the invisible man racially, he views blacks as “a mark on the scoreboard of [his] achievement”(Ellison 95). Despite these two facts the invisible man allows himself to be a “do boy” by chauffeuring Mr. Norton to slave quarters. It is here that the protagonist can truly be identified as someone that is not in touch with himself because he sacrifices his education for a man that is not concerned about him or his race. Dr. Bledsoe tries to drive this concept into the invisible man when he tells him that “the white folks tell everybody what to think”(Ellison 143). Dr. Bledsoe expels the invisible man from school, hoping that he will learn how to survive and develop an identity that suits him. After being expelled from school, the invisible man begins a journey to make a living for himself. He ends up in New York ...

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and glasses tinted a dark green, he moves about the street with greetings of “Hey now!”(Ellison 485) and “daddy-o”(Ellison 484). He immerses himself into a youthful lifestyle with no prior knowledge of how it operates. His resemblance to Rinehart is advantageous because it allows him to travel safely from place to place while in hiding from ““The Brotherhood””. The invisible man moves through his life never really living for himself but for others. In addition, to adopting the behaviors expected of him, he also adopts the personalities of others. Both of these practices strengthen the idea that he is invisible “simply because people ...

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