i have a question about chapter 11 (at least i think it's chapter 11) i don't understand the part where the narrator is in the hospital. right after he gets hurt at the paint factory. can someone explain this part of the book to me?? i'm totally lost. what happened to him? were they running experiments on him?? how long was he there?? details please, i'd greatly appreciate it.
btw, i'm reading the book for my own leisure, it's not an assignment or anything, i just wanna know cuz i'm lost at this point in the book. thanks for your help!!!!
2007-05-14 19:11:00 · 3 answers · asked by desireme112 2 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Books & Authors
I loved this book, but it's been awhile since I've read it, so forgive me for floundering.
I think the hospital scene is more of the character's invisibility. After his injury, he becomes temporarily invisible even to himself. He leaves the injuries fuzzy, as if they stood for all the injuries he underwent because of his color all his life, and he is given shock treatments, as if the white man is trying to erase his past from him, as if he can be erased, surely because he's invisible to them.
I remember it as being very scary. I feared his forgetting who he was, the ultimate "invisible man."
Finally though, I think it was a fantastic metaphor regarding the heinous power of the oppressor, because he doesn't feel like his own self after the shock therapy. Yet it speaks to the resilience and the strength of the oppressed, because the narrator does become somewhat depersonalized, yet he faces the truth, in an odd way. He experiences for the first time, that he really is out of sync with his fellow workers, that his life has a double-edged sword to it. He's highly aware, but that awareness keeps him from being, yes, (1) completely invisibilized, but (2) out of touch with just how invisible he really is to others, how marginalized.
The electric shock then becomes a kind of sleep potion that in its ironic way awakens him to a truth he could not have perceived had it come in a different form.
(I think! As I said, it's been awhile. I'd be curious to know, if this helps, if it fits....)
2007-05-14 19:54:11 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yes, he is in a hospital. The doctors are running expiraments on him. They perform electro-shock therapy.
I hope you enjoy the book - I've read it twice. Cheers.
2007-05-15 13:39:30 · answer #2 · answered by YSIC 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
That's one of my all time favorite books in the universe. Haven't read it in a while though.
Maybe this will help:
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/invisibleman/section7.rhtml
2007-05-14 19:35:00 · answer #3 · answered by Globetrotter 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋