Dreams Week 4

The narrator is quickly establishing his new name throughout the brotherhood community. He has been recognized for his ability to speak with passion and to evoke emotion and change within his audiences. Some brothers think of him as a threat, others a prodigy. The narrator is adapting to his new lifestyle with a feeling of finally grasping on to his idea of "freedom"--however, he makes a comment about his "old self" stating that he "slept only a few hours a night and and dreamed of his grandfather, Bledsoe, Brockway, and Mary" and now, in his long awaited arrival of this new visible life, he refers these flashbacks to nightmares thus telling the reader that his subconscious still feels uneasy about the brotherhood-as Ras predicted-they will eventually betray him and be apart of his grandfather's curse. Another dreamlike state that takes place that parallels with the theme of his facade of stability and trust in his colleagues is when he has just made love to a neglected wife (in a red robe = temptation), and the husband comes in and speaks briefly with his wife not acknowledging the invisible man at all, only to leave with a "short dry laugh." The narrator is startled with the man's lack of reaction and convinces himself that maybe he did dream what just happened. The short dry laugh is symbolic because of his grandfather's curse and how the entire novel there has been white women with red that have tried to tempt him, and now that he has been seduced and has gone on his impulses, this will come back and "keep the nigger boy running."