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A Thousand Faces

Towards the end of Invisible Man the narrator adopts the persona of Rinehart, and several people mistake him as such. Also around the same time he has an affair with a Brotherhood member named Sybil. In both of those instances, the narrator uses the fact that he has a fake identity to get away with what he is doing. In these cases, does the narrator's invisibility act as a tool that the narrator uses to have his way? Along the same lines, does the narrator even know his invisibility is being used this way. By this point in the book the narrator does sort of know he is "invisible", but hasn't said much about it and hasn't given it a proper name. This use of his "thousand faces" could help him "agree them[whites] to death", but the narrator seems to only use it to survive and not get caught by certain people. What are your opinions on the "thousand faces" interpretation, and are there any other clear examples of other times he's explicitly used his invisibility for gain?

Comments

  1. isabella solisOctober 8, 2018 at 1:40 PM

    I mentioned this on someone else's post, but I interpreted the narrator's time as Rinehart as like his pupal stage, a place to reform himself and come out changed. Going along with the insect metaphor, he makes his own new confusing markings to ward off predators. I think that's basically what the thousand faces mean, it's like he's creating this new way of being to confuse other people. With that, him going underground to completely emerge as his own person would suggest that he'll end up with his own "markings," independent of what others would expect from him.

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  2. SarahOctober 10, 2018 at 8:29 PM

    I think that at this point the Narrator isn't fully aware of his invisibility and while he may be trying to harness this "power" for his own good, other people are using him in the same way. For example, his affair with Sybil had the purpose, at least in his mind, of gathering information that would help him to attack the brotherhood. At the same time, Sybil was using him for her own purposes.

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  3. Tue DoOctober 11, 2018 at 6:56 PM

    The narrator never is able to fully take advantage of anyone in the book. I don't think it's because he doesn't want to, but because he's unable to. For example, Sybil just wants him in her rape fantasy. I think it's interesting that you say that a "thousand faces" will help him follow his grandfather's advice, and I never thought of it that way. I think his invisibility prevents him from gaining anything, rather than enabling him in general, though.

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