"Behold the Invisible
Thy will be done O Lord!
I See all, Know all, Tell all, Cure all.
You shall see the unknown wonders."

The narrator is given a handbill in the street on the way to Hambro's with this passage on it from Rev. B. P. Rinehart, spiritual technologist.  I believe this was a foreshadowing of Invisible Man's realization that he is completely invisible to everyone around him.  He will understand that he has had all of these identities forced on him by others, like The Brotherhood, or even the so-called big shots from the beginning of the novel when he says "social equality" instead of "social responsibility" and is asked to explain, to which he admits he made a mistake and the crowd is appeased.  All of these events, and the fact that he was merely playing roles relinquished to him in these events, become clear to him.

On page 498, after the Invisible Man removes his disguise that causes some confusion for everyone between him and Rinehart, the Invisible Man comes to revelation: "It was true as I was true. His world was possibility and he knew it.  He was years ahead of me and I was a fool.  I must have been crazy and blind.  The world in which we lived was without boundaries."  This is a crucial moment for the narrator, where he realizes that he does have a self even though he is invisible to others.  The veil that has been blinding him from himself is lifted at this point.  He also realizes that Rinehart is a shape-shifting symbol for limitless possibility.  The different aspects of Rinehart; Rinehart the Rounder, Rinehart the Rascal, Rinehart the Gambler, etc., that the Invisible Man is mistaken for lead to his understanding that he has never had a self because he has always accepted an identity given to him by others.

This was a poem written by Langston Hughes, published in 1951. Langston Hughes was a crucial part of the Harlem Renaissance as a social activist.  The Harlem Renaissance had many goals and dreams, of which Hughes makes a point that if they are not realized, it can rot a people from the inside out.  I believe it was Ellison's objective to make a point of preventing others from labeling members of the black community so as to crush their dreams.  With Rinehart's character, he demonstrates that to be an individual, to know yourself, is the most powerful weapon one can have against a society's attempts at defining a people against their will.

The novel comes full circle on page 508 with this quote: "I didn't know what my grandfather had meant, but I was ready to test his advice.  I'd overcome them with yeses, undermine them with grins, I'd agree them to death and destruction."  The invisible man finally understands what his grandfather meant on his deathbed.  In the previous paragraph he comes to the conclusion that, "I was my experiences and my experiences were me, and no blind men, no matter how powerful they became, even if they conquered the world, could take that..."  The narrator, no longer the invisible man, at least not to himself, is filled with confidence now that he has defined himself, and he has a new plan, a new direction, and seems to be for the first time truly fearless.

Questions:

1. Is the yessing strategy recommended by his grandfather the best way to proceed? Why? Why not?

2. Who do you perceive Rinehart to be? Why had he been blind to Rinehart's existence before?

3.  When does the game end with leading the double identity proposed by IM's grandfather?