Let There be Shade!

The narrator's shades that he buys to hide himself from Ras' people end up allowing him to see everything in a new light. But what I thought was very interesting was that Ellison made it so that the narrator was able to see more clearly when everything was darker. The narrator has been whitewashed throughout his entire life. Remember the beginning of the book? The narrator is literally used as a source of entertainment for a crowd of white men and he didn’t question it. But the shades help him see more clearly, even though the narrator explicitly says, “I could barely see; it was almost dark now, and the streets swarmed in a green vagueness.” By putting the shades on, the narrator sees a world that the Brotherhood (a white ruled organization) has not even noticed. People that the narrator would see every day, like those at the saloon, treat him completely different. His friends, strangers, officials, church-going Christians, women, nobody could recognize the narrator even though he is described as being an infamous speaker.

The darkness of the shades allows the narrator to explore and learn more about how he doesn’t know. He thinks he knows Harlem but he’s only seen it through the glass eye of Jack, a white male. When he sees it through the dark shades of Rinehart, the narrator is able to see more of Harlem and more of himself. He realizes what Bledsoe what trying to explain to him and how he’s been played over and over again. And he realizes all of this just but putting on another layer of black.

What do you guys think?

White or Black, These Men All the Same

Which men are all the same? To be specific: the superintendent, Mr. Norton, Dr. Bledsoe, Emerson Jr., the Doctor, and Brother Jack. Each man looks at the narrator and wants to "keep him running." They want to both mold him to somebody who can and will follow a path that leads to no ultimate success and that they deem best for themselves or the narrator. The superintendent, Bledsoe, and Emerson Jr. all hand the narrator papers that take him on to a new chapter in his life that doesn't really benefit the narrator at all (you could argue that Emerson's letter got the narrator a job, but Emerson was still doing it out of a want to defy his father and the job was awful in and of itself.) Mr. Norton tells the narrator that he is literally in charge of Norton’s fate and he wants the college to mold students like the narrator to follow through with Norton's fate, again not treating the narrator like an independent individual, but rather somebody who they can use to represent what they think a black man like the narrator should be. The doctor(s) from the factory are physically trying to rewire the narrator into what they want a black man to be. 
Brother Jack also fits in to this category of men who want to mold the narrator. He sees (much like the superintendent) a skill the narrator has to give speeches and he tries to exploit that. He sees the narrator as a tool to spread the Brotherhood's rhetoric and as a sort of "poster child" for the Brotherhood since he is a black man and the Brotherhood s mostly white. Similarly to the job the narrator took at the factory, he is only working for the Brotherhood because of financial reasons. Yes the narrator does not seem to fully agree with what the Brotherhood wants and he definitely is more skeptical than before his accident at the factory, but I would argue that the Brotherhood is still "keeping him running" because the narrator does nothing to undermine or defy their authority and control over him. All his skeptical-ness is in his head and he has a long ways to go before completely following the advice from his grandfather.

Speaking of the grandfather, do you guys think that he fits into the same category as the men above? I think an argument could be made that he does since he is sort of trying to mold his grandson into what he believes a black man should be. Thoughts?