1. Destanie Martin-Johnson
Invisible Man
Chapters 12-15
Destanie Martin-Johnson
Belinda Barfknecht   
Jeffrey Gyaase

2. Theme
1. Knowledge about the surrounding world can bring insight to oneself.
2. Issues from a person's past is often existant in a person's present and future and can't be ignored or erased.

3. Thesis
Ellison illustrates a possible idea that knowledge from the surrounding world can bring insight to oneself through the black woman’s eviction and its effects on the narrator and the events he encounters on his journey that make him re-evaluate himself and others.

4. Example 1
    Mary Rambo takes the narrator in after he faints on the train. When he wakes and Mary gives him soup, she starts to talk to him about young people are the ones who have to fight for a change. “It’s you young folks what’s going to make the changes,” she said. “Ya’all the ones. You got to lead and you got to fight and move us all on up a little higher[…] I’m in New York, but New your ain’t in me, understand what I mean? Don’t get corrupted.” pg. 225

5. Example 1. So What?
The narrator meets Mary, who is kind of like a father figure to him, and she speaks about responsibility of young people. She tells the narrator that he has to fight for what’s right for the rest of us, saying that when you're young not only do you have alot more opportunity, but also she implies that the younger generation are those who will/can make the most change. The narrator is impacted by her lecture about responsibility, like how his grandfather had an impact on him, so his responsibility is in a sense a "home" for the narrator because it is always being reminded to him. Also by Mary saying "I'm in New York, but New York ain’t in me" , she's implying to the narrator to try to not get corrupted because its easy for the outside world to corrupt someone.

6. Example 2
  The narrator sees the old woman and husband getting evicted from their home and told they couldn't go inside to pray. This angered the narrator and brought memories of his mother to him. He suddenly can't take it anymore and starts to speak to the crowd. "And why did I, standing in the crowd, see like a vision of my mother banging wash on a cold windy day, so cold that the warm clothes froze even before the vapor thinned and hung stiff on the line, and her hands white and raw in the skirt-whirling wind and her gray head bare to the darkened sky--why were they causing me discomfort so far beyond their intrinsic meaning as objects?" pg

7. Example 2. So What?
Here the narrator feels connected to the woman through a memory from his mother. Here also seems to be one of the first times the narrator becomes so upset by what's happening around him, that he finally speaks up, and speaks to the crowd. It's clear that he isn't afraid to say what he has to say, until the police show up. He ends up creating an impact on the crowd that he wasn't expecting. "Home" was the vision of his mother doing laundry outside, which the old woman reminded him of, and the narrator felt a responsibility to say something. The woman's eviction upset the narrator, but it brought out a stength in the narrator. This shows how other people and events can affect a person, in a good way.

8. Example 3
    The narrator goes back to the Men's house where he was staying and realized that he no longer fits in with the group of people who stayed there. He felt uncomfortable and felt that they could see right through him, and were judging him as they stared. "I could feel their eyes, saw them all and say too the time when they would know that my prospects were ended and say already the contempt they'd feel for me, a coolege man who had lost his prospects and pride..." pg 257

9. Example 3. So What?
As the narrator goes to the Men's House, he realizes the way they were looking at him, as if they were judging him by the way he dressed and how he acted, and seemed as if they already knew his story. He realizes then that no matter where he went he will always be looked at as a "black man" and judged based on racial sterotypes. This is another example of "home" (his appearance/racial stereotypes) because his past that he thought he left in the south, is still with him even when he's in the north. He leaves the Men's house because he doesn't want to be reminded of it, and wants to feel accepted and more comfortable somewhere else.

10. THE END :)