Symbols of Enslavement and Freedom To get rid of blindness, the Invisible Man stepwise but certainly begins to appreciate that initially he has to accept and confess who he is and which race he belongs to, his ancestors and all the issues happening from this. Yet, he does not always achieve to overcome the problems and insults reasoned by his origins, also owing to many assaulting symbols and ideas which still continue to exist in society although the central character lives in an age more than eighty-five years after the end of slavery. However, the Invisible Man must find himself, his honor and his self-regard, in order to find the way to his ancestry and his race.
Not only does he constantly come across prejudiced and narrow-minded people but he also gets in contact with images and symbols that mock and insult him as well as dispraise his race in general. There is no doubt, coin bank is one of these symbols,
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Lee, the Sambo dolls stand for “sad ‘happy’ niggers, figures of fun and derision controlled by white ringmasters” (23-24). In other words, it symbolizes the Brotherhood which is led by a white brother, Brother Jack, and its black brothers who are manipulated to dance to his tunes just like the Sambo puppets on the string. Contrary to the belief of Robert A. Lee is the opinion claimed by Alan Nadel in which he stresses the fact that “being both black and invisible the string [that controls the dolls] becomes an emblematic lesson about the possibilities of black power” (81). As a matter of fact, this proves to be true at the close of the novel when the black citizens of Harlem are shown to be able to act on their own and rise up against everything that they perceive as suppression of their rights. Without the manipulative and two-faced guidance by the Brotherhood, “they organized […] [the riot] and carried it through alone; the decision their own and their own action. Capable of their own action” (Ellison