While many are aware of the racism that divides whites and blacks, few know the intensity of the division. In the beginning of his story, Invisible Man, several black boys are put into a boxing ring to fight until severe injuries. Many white men are sitting around the ring, cheering on the black boys, encouraging them to wound each other. This ruins the self-image and self-esteem of the black boys, while demonstrating the both physical and mental divide between whites and blacks, because the boys are physically in a specific area designated by the men, and mentally because they have now become a toy for the men to play with for entertainment. By using physical metaphors to explain the man-made division between blacks and whites, Ellison
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Once the narrator completes his speech, the superintendent presents him with a “gleaming calfskin brief case,”(32) which contains a scholarship to “the state college for Negroes”(32). Ellison specifically decided to make the briefcase out of calfskin to represent the fact that the narrator is similar to a calf in this situation. Calves were used as sacrifices on religious alters, and the narrator is currently being offered as sacrifice on an alter of racism. He has been chosen to speak in front of many white men, yet they fail to give him their undivided attention, yet instead,make him a laughing stock. This is another example of the white men using the blacks as entertainment, and they, therefore, did not take him seriously. They accepted him as sacrifice and tore into every word he said, unable to contain their laughter. The narrator was still excited; however, and, just as clergymen feel victorious after a sacrifice, he felt “triumph[ant],”(33) because he was able to reach out to the white men. The metaphor of sacrifices does not only describe how difficult it was for the narrator to get through to the white men, but also the difference in roles that each race plays. The white men evidently use the black boys for entertainment and look down upon them, forgetting about mutually beneficial relationships, treating them just as the clergymen treated their animal sacrifices. This demonstrates both a divide between the races and the frustration the blacks feel, because the whites make it almost impossible for blacks to get through to them and treat them with
Once the narrator completes his speech, the superintendent presents him with a “gleaming calfskin brief case,”(32) which contains a scholarship to “the state college for Negroes”(32). Ellison specifically decided to make the briefcase out of calfskin to represent the fact that the narrator is similar to a calf in this situation. Calves were used as sacrifices on religious alters, and the narrator is currently being offered as sacrifice on an alter of racism. He has been chosen to speak in front of many white men, yet they fail to give him their undivided attention, yet instead,make him a laughing stock. This is another example of the white men using the blacks as entertainment, and they, therefore, did not take him seriously. They accepted him as sacrifice and tore into every word he said, unable to contain their laughter. The narrator was still excited; however, and, just as clergymen feel victorious after a sacrifice, he felt “triumph[ant],”(33) because he was able to reach out to the white men. The metaphor of sacrifices does not only describe how difficult it was for the narrator to get through to the white men, but also the difference in roles that each race plays. The white men evidently use the black boys for entertainment and look down upon them, forgetting about mutually beneficial relationships, treating them just as the clergymen treated their animal sacrifices. This demonstrates both a divide between the races and the frustration the blacks feel, because the whites make it almost impossible for blacks to get through to them and treat them with