Mrs. Dalton, the woman who owns the house where Bigger works, is blind and ethereal and dressed in white clothing. Her appearance operates metaphorically, suggesting the she and other white people are blind to the individuality of Bigger and other black people. For instance, she is quite interested in helping black people, but she wants to help them the way she thinks they need to be helped. After she talks to Bigger about going to school, Bigger “felt that Mrs. Dalton wanted him to do the things she felt that he should have wanted to do.”
Native Son – 5
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.”