Given the narrator's life-long search for his true identity, the narrator's realization, which he attempts to share with Mr. Norton asks him for directions but doesn't recognize him as the young man he once identified as the keeper of his destiny. The narrator's accidental meeting with Mr. He reiterates his stance, "I'm invisible, not blind." Despite the torture he has been forced to endure, he is still stupidly alive, which suggests that living in a world that denies an individual basic human rights is a fate worse than death. The narrator's remark regarding his "belated appreciation of the crude joke that had kept me running" reveals his enhanced emotional maturity, as does his struggle to come to terms with the meaning of his grandfather's advice. Although the world around him has not changed significantly, the narrator's attitude toward life and his perspective concerning normal versus abnormal behavior have changed dramatically, because he is now a veteran of the race war. Recalling the narrator's initial encounter with the veterans at the Golden Day, in light of his own experiences he is likely to be more sympathetic and understanding of their situation at this point in his life than he was as a naïve young college student. Without this knowledge, labeling him "crazy" and simply discounting or dismissing his remarks would be the greater inclination. He has also achieved a clarity of vision that enables him to see things from a different perspective.Īfter getting to know him on a more personal level as a unique individual instead of as a nameless, anonymous black man, the reasons behind his ramblings are understandable. Resuming his reflections on the meaning of his life that he began in the Prologue, the narrator, having survived numerous traumatic experiences, including the madness of the Harlem riot, can now reflect on his life with a detached objectivity that he was unable to achieve before he realized that, through his imagination, he has the power to transform and transcend reality. The narrator considers coming out of hibernation and facing the world once again, reasoning that "even an invisible man has a socially responsible role to play." Having had time to reflect on his life, he has decided that reality exists in the mind. In the Epilogue, the narrator speaks to us from his underground hideout again.
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