Power In Invisible Man

Humans, when faced with power or a taste of authority tend to corrupt their mindset and their vision. In the novel, Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, the narrator aspires to become a powerful, educated African American, at the time, one who beats the odds, like the few who came before him and inspired. He wanted to surpass the people with whom he grew up. He only focused on the power that he would acquire that he became blind to his surroundings, and developed a different view than the ones who influenced him, such as Booker T. Washington.
Growing up in the south at the time was incontinent for the narrator as an African American, in contempt of being a liberated man there was still segregation, especially in schools. Surrounded by his uneducated

While he was hated by most of his classmates due to him being arrogant and look down upon by the black community. After graduating high school, he got the chance to give his speech at a hotel for some important white people. While he is at the hotel, he finds himself in a boxing match (battle royal) with nine of his classmates for entertainment, which led him to a mouth full of blood. At the end, he got to give his speech and received a scholarship to a state college for Negroes. That same night, his late grandfather appeared in his dream, ordering him to open the briefcase and look inside. Instead of the scholarship, he finds a note that reads, “Keep this nigger boy running”. Thinking back to the battle royal, the message that those white men wanted him to receive was that he was just like his classmates/ the participants in the boxing match, he wasn't any better than them. Those white men wanted to keep him running and not achieving anything in his life. However, being blind, motivated and hungry for success, he paid no attention to these

Disgusted by the words spoken to him by his dean, Dr. Bledsoe such as: “nigger this isn’t the time to lie”, the narrator saw the true identity of this African American man, with much success, and a person he looked up to. Once he got to New York, while looking for a job he was asked if he would consider attending a different college in New England. He responded he wanted to return to his old college, and that is when he lost his vision, seeing how much power dr. Bledsoe had, how he spoke toward the whites, and how he treated him. The narrator wants the same thing; he wanted power for popularity, not to help others. While still in New York the narrator was asked by, bother Jack to join the Brotherhood because he liked his speech giving skills. Once he joined, The Brotherhood, asked him to forget who he was, but the theme of the story was for him to find his identity as he addressed himself as the invisible man, he did not care because The Brotherhood was paying him a lot of money at the time. Brother Jack claimed, the people in The Brotherhood are liberators, but the narrator was too blind by the money they were paying him that he did not realize The Brotherhood were a bunch of oppressors. The narrator was accused of betraying the black community due to him joining The