Blindess: Week 2

After attending a powerful and stirring sermon in church the Inivisible Man goes to talk to Dr.Bledsoe in his office. Dr.Bledsoe furiously berates him for driving Mr. Norton to the old slave quarters and to the Golden Day and questions the Invisible Man's motives for doing so. He accuses him of being coerced into it and can not believe that the Invisible Man would actually take definite orders from a white man instead of doing what was in his own, the school's, and even the African-American race's interest. It is in this chapter and scene that the Invisible Man comes to a sort of revelation. Dr.Bledsoe gives the Invisible Man a speech that describes how he lives his life, "That’s my life, telling white folk how to think about the things I know about. . . . It’s a nasty deal and I don’t always like it myself. . . . But I’ve made my place in it and I’ll have every Negro in the country hanging on tree limbs by morning if it means staying where I am.”(142) All this time-with the exception of the mirror scene- the Invisible Man has seen the President as the epitome of a humble and respectful black man, a faithful servant to the powerful white men. His blindness to the truth of Dr.Bledsoe caused him to even envy the doctor and want to one day have a future like his. We see the blindness of the whites that Dr.Blesdoe has in the palm of his hands by being able simply change his manner of speech to that of an uneducated southern black man, and telling them "the kind of lie they want to hear,"(143). The students, the faculty, the minister, the trustees are all blind to the fact that whatever Dr.Bledsoe does is simply for his own benefit. Dr.Bledsoe(no matter how confident he appears) understands that his completely unveiling his mask to the Invisible Man could prove detrimental to his career, and since he would rather see every black lynched then lose power he sends him away to New York. We think that the Invisible Man is no longer blind to Dr.Bledsoe's ruse and intentions, but he still on pg.147 manages to convince himself that the doctor is right and his punishment is a merciful act from Dr.Bledsoe instead of the self-serving action it really was.