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Teachers' Resource Web Study Questions on Ralph Ellison Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (1952) Prologue 1) Examine pages 1518-19. Why is the narrator invisible, and what is his attitude toward his invisibility? 2) Examine 1519-20. What is significant about where and how the narrator says he lives—why the basement, why all the light bulbs? Why the need to cheat Monopolated Light & Power? 3) Look over 1521-23. What causes the narrator's strange vision? Break the vision into its components and discuss their meaning to you. Ultimately, what does the narrator learn from his vision? 4) Look over 1524-25. Why does the narrator start addressing "you"? Why does he bring up the issue of "irresponsibility" in connection with his invisibility? Does the end of this prologue explain anything about the beginning? Chapter 1 5) See 1525-26. How does the narrator's grandfather connect him to the past? What is the grandfather's lesson to him? 6) See 1526-34. The "battle royal" is a complicated affair. Break it down into its component events—recount it as a brief plot, with no attempt to analyze it yet except to distinguish between what is realistic in the episode and what is beyond the ordinary or the possible. 7) Examine 1526-34. When and why does the "battle royal" take place—for whose benefit? What is the narrator's speech going to be about, and why does he continually want to deliver it in spite of everything that's happening to him? What vision of black/white relations emerges from this strange episode? 8) Examine 1535. Why does the narrator's grandfather laugh at him in the chapter's concluding dream? To what extent does the message "Keep This Nigger-Boy Running" help to explain the Battle Royal episode? Epilogue 9) From 1536 middle to 1537 first paragraph, how does the narrator understand his grandfather's advice from long ago? 10) On 1537, last paragraph, the narrator says, "that much I've learned underground." What has he learned? To respond, examine the previous paragraph, the one containing the statement I've just quoted, and the first two paragraphs of 1538. 11) See the footnote about Mr. Norton on 1537. As a conformist student at an all-black college that preached black humility and self-help while benefiting from white patronage, the narrator stood in awe of the rich white man Mr. Norton. How does he address him now from 1538 (beginning with the third paragraph, "Which reminds me . . .") to 1539? Why is he Mr. Norton's destiny? 12) How does the narrator connect to his readers from 1539, last paragraph, to the end? What lesson, if any, has he imparted to his readers?
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