Bigger thinks because he is black, Mrs. Dalton would not have been suspected of being in her daughter’s bedroom. He believes he isn’t factored into Mrs. Dalton’s thinking in that kind of social situation, and this makes her and other white people figuratively blind, in the same way that Mrs. Dalton his literally blind.
Native Son – 8
Invisible Man: 1
In the prologue of the novel, the main character writes “I remember that I am invisible and walk softly so as not to awaken the sleeping ones.” This reference to sleeping people brings to mind the people Ta-nehisi Coates refers to as “the Dreamers” in Between the World and Me.
Invisible Man: 2
At the start of the novel, the protagonist is “considered an example of desirable conduct” and he delivers a speech on the day of his graduation from high school that emphasizes the idea that “humility was the secret.” This speech and this behavior can be associated with Booker T. Washington, who is regarded as encouraging black people to accept their inferior status in American society in order to gain the right to do menial work and physical labor for white people.
Invisible Man: 3
When the protagonist is awarded a scholarship to a black college, he pauses before a statue of the founder of the school lifting a veil from the face of a kneeling slave. This veil can be associated with DuBois’s concept of the veil that separates people of different races in the U.S., and the fact that the slave has been blinded by the covering ties in to the novel’s themes of visibility and invisibility. Most profoundly though, the protagonist is “puzzled” by the statue, “unable to decide whether the veil is really being lifted, or lowered more firmly in place.”
Invisible Man: 8
The protagonist and Mr. Norton visit a brothel that the patients from a mental institution are allowed to visit. The unruly patients are supervised by an attendant named Supercargo who kicks them down the stairs of the building when they rush to attack him. Supercargo can be associated with Freud’s concept of the “superego,” the aspect of human consciousness that regulates the behavior of the unruly unconscious mind, keeping those primal thoughts suppressed.
Invisible Man: 9
At the brothel, a patient of the mental institution tells the protagonist to watch as he attacks Supercargo, then he says “Sometimes I get so afraid of him I feel that he’s inside my head.” This lends credence to the idea that Supercargo represents the Freudian concept of the superego. After this, the patients repeatedly knock Supercargo unconscious, then revive him “only to kick him unconscious again.”