Title: Disillusioned Dreams
Ÿ Represents how the narrator is very naïve throughout the first chapters of the book, then he is awakened from a “dream” in a sense to realize that all of his life has been fake and unrealistic. He is reborn in a sense.
Key
Ÿ Narrator: red- journey and suffering he had to undergo throughout the novel.
Ÿ Peter Wheatstraw: yellow- positive force
Ÿ Bledsoe: black- ominous presence, antagonist role in chapters
Ÿ Young Mr. Emerson: green- wealth, tries to help open up the narrators eyes to deception
Ÿ Kimbro: white- typical white boss
Ÿ Lucius Brockway: orange- heated, fiery personality
Layout of Poster
Ÿ Clouds- the narrator was in a dream-like stage
Ÿ Lightning- the realization that he was being lied to and the opening of his eyes to see that he is only seen as a black southerner and as nothing else.
Ÿ Sun: the rebirth of the narrator, and the beams of the sun represent the rest of the journey the narrator makes throughout the rest of the novel. The sun is supposed to represent the beginning of the rest of the narrator’s life and the events that changed him forever.
Chpt 8: Kate
Chapter 8
●Chpt Description: Narrator is out looking for a job
●In the ‘Dream’ section of the cloud because everything is really going his way, he’s feeling good and confident.
Events:
Letters
●Picture a bundle of official-looking letters
●Official-ness of the letters representing the world the Narrator hopes to enter
●Each letter has the potential to get him where he wants to be in his life, an opportunity for betterment
●Quote: “I succeeded in reaching several trustees’ secretaries during the days that followed, and all were friendly and encouraging. Some looked at me strangely, but I dismissed it since it didn’t appear to be antagonism. Perhaps they’re surprised to see someone like me with introduction to such important men, I thought” (Ellison 168).
I. Significant because reveals Narrator’s certainty of his position and reveals his unwavering confidence. He is glad to be set apart from other African Americans, glad to find himself ‘special’ because of his letters. Feels like the best and glowing part of a dream where you have everything you could ever want.
Welcome to the North
●Chose title because getting the first-hand feel of what it’s like to be a black man in the North
●Picture of the endless crowd with faded faces to show how no one really stands out, how everyone is just lost in a faceless blur.
●Quote: “Walking about the streets, sitting on subways besides whites, eating with them in the same cafeterias (although I avoided their tables) gave me the eerie, out-of-focus sensation of a dream” (Ellison 168).
I. Significant because brings in the topic of everything as a dream. Not feeling like in actual reality.
II. Brings into play the topic of invisibility: not like in the South where he’s just ignored, here, no one actually sees him. He goes completely unnoticed.
Chapter Significance:
●This chapter is significant in the novel because the Narrator is reaching towards his dream. He is at his highest point—talking to the secretaries of important men, dreaming he will become one of them. But as we’ll see in the next chapters and later in the novel, everything the Narrator dreams about is always beyond his grasp. This chapter is one of his highest points and soon he is going to fall.
Chpt 9: A.P.
Chapter 9:
●Description: Narrator is out to deliver the last letter to Mr. Emerson. On his way, he meets a man named Peter Wheatstraw and also stops at a diner.
●The position of these events are on the border of the lightning bolt and in the lightning bolt because this dream is slowly turning into a nightmare.
Events:
Peter Wheatstraw (Yellow)
●Picture of a blueprint because he carries around “‘bout a hundred pounds of blueprints”
●One conversation that the narrator and Wheatstraw have: “ Folks is always making plans and changing ‘em.”- Wheatstraw. “Yes, that’s right,” I said, thinking of my letters, “but that’s a mistake. You have to stick to the plan.”- Narrator “He suddenly looked at me grave. ‘You kinda young, daddy-o’”.- Wheatstraw.
○This is significant because it’s a foreshadow. At this point in the book, the narrator needs to always have a plan, and he needs to stay with his plan. He’s very uptight and prissy with it. Wheatstraw, on the other hand, is a free spirit, and he just goes with the flow. He calls the narrator young because he doesn’t really know what being free spirited is like. In the epilogue and prologue, the narrator is more like Wheatstraw, and that’s why this is a foreshadow.
●Quotation on the poster: “My name is Peter Wheatstraw, I’m the Devil’s only son-in-law, so roll ‘em! You a southern boy, ain’t you” (Ellison 176)?
I. This is important because this is the first point in the story where the narrator realizes that he’s seen as a person from the south. Up until this point, he’s been living the dream. Everything was going well for him. However, this is the spot where it starts to slowly turn towards the nightmare. That’s why its located on the edge of the lightning bolt. He thinks very little of this stereotyping though.
A Typical Southern Breakfast (Red)
●Picture of a pork chop dinner
●Title represents how the narrator thinks that the man behind the counter is stereotyping.
●Located deeper into the lightning bolt
●Quotation: “‘Pork chops, grits, one egg, hot biscuits and coffee!’ He leaned over the counter with a look that seemed to say, There, that ought to excite you, boy. Could everyone see that I was southern” (Ellison 178)?
I. This is significant because similarly to the last quote, he is being recognized as somebody from the south. Actually, not only recognized, but stereotyped. He thinks that the white man behind the counter is offering him pork chops and grits because he’s black and from the south. The narrator becomes outraged internally, and he leaves a small tip.
II. There is some irony here because the man behind the counter was really just offering him the special, just as he would to any other customer. The way that Ellison wrote it may make him seem like a bad guy, but you have to remember this is all from the narrator’s perspective.
Nightmare (Red)
●Title chosen because after this, he is definitely out of the dream and into the nightmare.
●At this point he has given Mr. Emerson’s son the letter to deliver to Mr. Emerson, but the son doesn’t want to give it to his father. The letter is written by Bledsoe.
●Quote: “Twenty-five years seemed to have lapsed between his handing me the letter and my grasping its message. I could not believe it, tried to read it again. I could not believe it” (Ellison 191)...
I. This quotation is very important because its when reality smacks the narrator in the face. The weather has gone from a blue sky to a downpour. All of his dreams just flew out the window. The narrator now sees how cruel life is, and from here on out in the rest of the book, he is a totally different person. He takes nothing for granted after this.
II. This also ties to the theme of invisibility. In this case, Bledsoe is keeping the narrator hidden from the world. He just tells all of these big business owners to not even give him a chance; he tells them to send him off to the next person, and that ties in with the grandfather’s words: Keep that nigger boy running.
Chapter Significance
This chapter’s purpose was to open the narrator’s eyes to the realities of the world. It made him realize that he was no longer in his perfect little world where people will help him get by. He’s on his own now in New York, and he has been betrayed. Now he has to fend for himself with a job that any ordinary person could do. Its quite degrading to the narrator, but all of these events lead up to his rebirth in a couple chapters.
Chpt 10: Taylor
Chapter 10:
●Description: Narrator is working in the paint plant.
●This chapter’s events are in the lightning bolt because the Narrator realizes that he has returned to reality and has gone back to being invisible and being controlled by the white community.
Events:
Absentmindedly Mixing
●Picture of white paint dripping out of a can
●Very literal, represents the paint he’s mixing for Kimbro his supervisor
●Simply obeying the people who are superior to him. The Narrator does not ask any questions, he just does what he’s told, which is what Kimbro wants in a worker
●Quotes: “If It’s Optic White, It’s the Right White” (Ellison 217). “If you’re white, you’re right” (Ellison 218).
I. This is significant because the black drops being put into the white paint represent how the black community enhances the white community, even though the whites refuse to believe it. If the black drops were not put into the paint then it would not be the Optic White that it is, and it would be just like any other white paint just as if the black community was not adding “drops” of themselves to the white community then they would not be as strong and powerful.
II. It also briefly brings up stereotyping of the Narrator. Although he is not being stereotyped as a Southern boy, he is being stereotyped as a “colored college boy” when being put to work.
The Foundation
●Title represents the Narrator meeting Lucius Brockway when he is sent to work for him after being sent away by Kimbro
●Picture represents the atmosphere he’s now working in, pipes and valves.
●Quote: “I was so disgusted to find such a man in charge that I turned without a word and started back up the stairs” (Ellison 208).
●Stereotyping Brockway because he is a rundown black man who says he makes the plant what it is.
I. This part of the chapter is significant because it goes deeper into the idea of the black foundation that creates satisfaction in the white community. While having a conversation with Brockway about the factory and how it works, it becomes clear that the blacks are being taken advantage of.
II. It’s also clear that the Narrator is no longer in a dream. The dream has turned into a nightmare. The work that the blacks have put into the paint is a representation of everything that the blacks do for the whites in general. They are simply ignored and taken advantage of, so the whites can keep control over everything.
Explosion
●Picture of an explosion
●Narrator has not been paying attention to the pressure gauge and it explodes
I. Significant because it is a transition into chapter 11.
Chapter Significance:
●This chapter is significant because it shows the Narrator at the peak of the nightmare. It emphasizes that the blacks are a big part in how the whites live, and they aren’t given any credit for it. Instead, they continue to be treated like they are all the same and like they have no place in the world.
Chapter 11: Jaime
●Description: Narrator is in the factory hospital.
●This chapter of events is coming out of the lighting bolts into the sun, because it is representing the narrator metaphorically waking up from a bad dream.
Rebirth
●Title: Rebirth is the title because its the narrator beginning a new life, he doesn't know who he his, and what he is going to become.
●Picture: This is a baby crying, because its the narrator waking up from the accident, and He doesn't know who he is or where he is.he is Innocent like a baby.
●Quote: is “I realized that i no longer knew my own name. I shut my eyes and shoot my head with sorrow”(239).
●Significance is because this is a turn table on the narrator life, he was proud of he who was and what he did, now he has nothing to go off on and its a fresh start for him.
Realization
●Title: This is a beginning step for the narrators new life because he is realizing that he doesn't need to hold white men in a higher place just because their white.
●Picture its a face that has bright open eyes, it represents that the narrator is realizing how white men shouldn't be treated because of their race .
●Quote: “I was no longer afraid. Not of important men, not if such trustees and such:for knowing now that there was nothing which i could expect from them, there was no reason, to be afraid.Was that it? I felt light-headed, my eyes were ringing.I went on”(249).
●This is significant because the narrator is realizing that the world is raciest and white people are being treated better because of their race, so he wants equality. But than his head gets foggy, and his realization gets changed a little bit, because later on in the book he starts fighting for black people to be treated better, but he still treated the white men in the brother hood with higher respect.
Ending
●In the chapters 8-11 the narrator starts in a dream thinking that everything is fine and dandy in the world, but going through the chapter the great dream turns into a nightmare he finds out about the real aspects of racism.But when the accident in the paint factory leaves the narrator confused with who he is, when the narrator wakes up from the bad dream, he forgets who he is and what he was trying to do in New York. And creates new ideas in his head for what he wants to do. That's how chapter 11 ends with the narrator begining of his new life after his horrible nightmare.