Racism (Black v. White)

After the Invisible Man receives his scholarship to the Negro college, he dreams about opening a briefcase to a series of envelopes, each leading to another. The endless cycle of envelopes presents a circular idea that is prevalent in other sections of the novel. In the final envelope, the Invisible Man finds an "engraved document containing a short message in letters of gold" (33). The document seems to resemble the scholarship letter he had received after giving his speech. However, this time it read, "To Whom It May Concern... Keep This Nigger-Boy Running"(33).  The emphasis on this quote in the novel highlights the reality that black students would continue to follow the circular path of searching for respect and dignity through education. Society allows them to believe they can gain those things in college, however the impossibility of that achievement in society will destroy their mental sanity and push them to resort back to the physical, animalistic baseness that drives all of humanity. This message to the Invisible Man in the conclusion of chapter one serves to introduce the idea that animalistic blacks are tied by society to a metaphorical stake in the middle of a round pen- such as that for a horse- and can never deviate from that path to achieve success.