Chapter 2 of Invisible Man makes me cringe. This farmer, Trueblood, told his story and I think it was intended to cause this cringing (thanks Mr. Ellison) --though when you read certain parts like Mrs. Trueblood coming at the poor guy with an enormous axe ("Naw Kate, naw!") it does make you want to let out a guilty snigger in addition to the cringing. One person (of many) who takes this story extremely seriously is the important rather stuffed up character known as Mr. Norton, a white benefactor of the black college. He sits through the entire thing completely enraptured with this storytelling farmer, and while he considers the situation scandalous he wants to hear every scandalous detail. I have my theories why.
Norton has this daughter who he describes as "being too pure for life...too pure and too good and too beautiful."(43). He can't known the narrator for more than an hour before whipping out her picture and forcing the poor driver to confirm her beauty and tragic story, so I think this is kind of a habit of his; to relate his social conversations to his daughter and show people his perfect "creation". He speaks of her more like a lover than a daughter, and though there's nothing explicit about his anecdotal speech to the narrator, there is an uncanny connection (foreshadowing?) to Trueblood's story, which is yet to come. I can't help but wonder if the awe he had for his daughter, "a work of purest art", was amplified by Trueblood's story, meaning that the farmer's retelling caused some not-so-skillfully repressed feelings toward her to be brought to the surface (more cringing). This could explain why he was listening so intently, horrified but intrigued; because he identified with Trueblood in that both had uncommonly intimate relationships with their daughters, spurring Norton to present Trueblood with a monetary gift. Ironically, though it seems to be Norton who notices his daughter and is attracted to her, poor Trueblood: victim of circumstance, is the one who is cast out by his company for having accidentally acted on feelings that he had never experienced, but Norton had. Just one more example about how the whites get away with everything. But, he is popular with most white men. Hmm. That gives me such confidence in the white race.
Norton is not the only one who has an interest in the story. The narrator is totally freaked out by the entire situation. From his perspective, two things in his orderly world are being shattered, these being the upstanding and respectable ways of white people with their contempt for blacks, and that black people tend to wear masks of submissiveness and respect when speaking and dealing with whites. Norton ignores all pleasantries and uncharacteristically storms up to Trueblood, then listens to is story with such enrapture that in itself is almost scandalous. He then paternalistically presents Trueblood with a decent sum, (a reward for being outlandish in the eyes of the narrator), and, while shaken, does not view the farmer's behavior as a model for all black men, as the narrator thought he would. He takes of his mask of respectability.
Trueblood is being true to his name, and telling it like it is, scandalous and all, using minimal "sirs" and showing that he wears no mask of humility or trying constantly change the minds of white about their stereotypes and opinions of the way black people act. He lays his situation out openly on the table to be scrutinized by a strange white man without being explicitly asked, therefore defying the narrator's definition of how any black man should act around whites.
Essentially, this story acts as much more than an interesting, slightly humorous, mostly cringe-worthy anecdote in this novel. It aided in "lifting the veil" over the narrator's eyes that showed everyone as one-dimensional drones who all think the same, and proved that most people (Trueblood excepted) wear masks that dictate their everyday actions.
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