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Chapters
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Chapters
Chapters at a glance
Invisible Man has 25 chapters.
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Chapters25 items
Battle Royal
The narrator, a young Black man in the South, is invited to give his graduation speech before a group of white town leaders.
Chapter 2
The narrator is now at the Black college and is assigned to drive a wealthy white trustee, Mr. Norton, around the campus.
Chapter 3
Still trying to manage the fallout from the Trueblood visit, the narrator takes the unwell Norton to the Golden Day, a local bar that also serves as an informal gathering place fo…
Chapter 4
The narrator brings Norton back to campus and faces Dr. Bledsoe, the college president.
Chapter 5
Before leaving for New York, the narrator attends a chapel service where Homer Barbee, a blind Black preacher, delivers a sermon about the college's founder.
Chapter 6
The narrator faces the consequences of taking Mr. Norton to the Golden Day.
Chapter 7
The narrator rides a bus north to New York, leaving the South and the college behind. He shares the ride with a man named Peter Wheatstraw, who speaks in blues idiom and coded Bla…
Chapter 8
The narrator settles into Harlem and begins delivering his sealed letters to the important men Bledsoe named. Each visit goes nowhere.
Chapter 9
Armed with the truth about Bledsoe's letters, the narrator takes a job at a paint factory called Liberty Paints. Young Emerson helped him get the referral.
Chapter 10
The narrator works in the basement with Lucius Brockway, who is paranoid, territorial, and deeply suspicious of the narrator.
Chapter 11
The narrator wakes up in a hospital after the factory explosion, strapped to a machine that delivers electric shocks.
Chapter 12
The narrator, still disoriented after the hospital, wanders Harlem and runs into Mary Rambo, a warm and practical Black woman who takes him in without asking for anything in retur…
Chapter 13
The narrator witnesses an elderly Black couple being evicted from their Harlem apartment. Their belongings are piled on the street, and a crowd gathers.
Chapter 14
The narrator moves into a new apartment paid for by the Brotherhood and begins his training. He meets other Brotherhood members, attends meetings, and starts to understand the org…
Chapter 15
The narrator finds a cast-iron bank shaped like a racist caricature of a Black figure in his new apartment. He tries to throw it away but can't get rid of it easily.
Chapter 16
The narrator gives his first major Brotherhood speech at a Harlem arena. He wings it, speaking from personal experience rather than the approved Brotherhood line, and the crowd lo…
Chapter 17
The narrator runs into Tod Clifton on the street and witnesses him selling Sambo dolls, crude racist caricatures that dance on a string.
Chapter 18
The narrator organizes a public funeral for Tod Clifton on his own initiative, without Brotherhood approval. He delivers a eulogy that focuses on Clifton as an individual rather t…
Chapter 19
The narrator is reassigned from Harlem to work on the Brotherhood's downtown, white-focused activities. He meets a woman at a party who seduces him, then claims afterward that sle…
Chapter 20
The narrator returns to Harlem and finds it transformed. Ras the Exhorter, a Black nationalist who has always opposed the Brotherhood, has gained major influence while the narrato…
Chapter 21
The narrator throws himself into Brotherhood work in Harlem, giving speeches and organizing, but he starts to notice that the organization's leadership downtown seems to be pullin…
Chapter 22
The narrator decides to organize a public funeral for Clifton, turning the event into a Brotherhood rally. Thousands of Harlem residents show up.
Chapter 23
Confused and angry after the Brotherhood's rebuke, the narrator tries to figure out what the organization is actually doing.
Chapter 24
The narrator tries one last time to work within the Brotherhood, now suspecting they may have deliberately sacrificed Harlem to provoke a crisis they could use.
Epilogue
The narrator has been living underground, in a basement lit by stolen electricity, telling his story. Now he says he is almost ready to come back up.
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