WAEC QUESTIONS: THE NARRATOR’S EXPERIENCES WITH KIMBRO AND THE NARRATOR’S EXPERIENCES AT THE EVICTION IN RALPH ELLISON'S INVISIBLE MAN

THE NARRATOR’S EXPERIENCES WITH KIMBRO IN THE NOVEL

The relation to theme is the effects of racial prejudice on black Americans and is a major theme in the novel. The narrator is a black college dropout from the Deep South. He is bitter because he is treated as a non-being and so decided to live underground, and be invisible. He finds work in a paint plant. Kimbro is the head of the shipping department at Liberty Paints. He is the narrator's first boss there. He is bad-tempered. The narrator presents himself for a job at Liberty Paints and is assigned to work under Kimbro. The narrator overhears a telephone conversation in which Kimbro is ‘swearing violently’. The narrator is made uneasy by Kimbro’s ‘nasty mood’. The narrator is made to ‘go right to work’ and is taught what to do by Kimbro.The narrator is left on his own as Kimbro leaves to attend a meeting.  He mistakes a component of paint and spoils the paint that he is mixing.  Kimbro is angry and he seeks the narrator’s immediate removal. Given a second chance,  Kimbro seems to relent and guides the narrator afresh. The narrator applies his intuition, and Kimbro approves. The paint is loaded off, to-the narrator’s confusion. The narrator is dismissed from Kimbro’s department, nevertheless.The narrator is surprised that his services can be dispensed with so dismissively.

THE NARRATOR’S EXPERIENCES AT THE EVICTION

The theme of self-identity is a major one in the novel. The narrator is not accorded recognition and so he can declare ‘I am what I am' while eating yam. The character can be identified as an unnamed narrator who is the protagonist in the novel. He is treated as non-being by the system and so ‘an invisible man and retreats into an underground cellar. He encounters the eviction while still in search of his identity within the society. It is the narrator's ‘first northern winter’ when the eviction happens. He is restless and takes a walk in the cold weather. He chances upon an old couple being evicted ‘lawfully’ by ‘Marshals or something’. The old woman keeps repeating: “Leave us alone’ and just look what they doing to us’. The Marshal pleads ‘I got my orders’. The narrator is scandalized: ‘They can do that up here?’ The crowd is surprised by the narrator’s ignorance. The event changes the mood of the crowd. The crowd is incensed and wants ‘to beat the hell out of those paddies’. Hell breaks loose when the woman is hit by the Marshal and she falls, as she insists to go back in and pray. The crowd chases away the marshal and congregates. The narrator made a speech while the crowd soothes, the narrator urges the people to behave like ‘a law-abiding people and slow-to-anger people’ and not resort to violence. The speech rouses the crowd. A much-inspired white girl shows the narrator an escape route as the police arrive. A fellow, Brother jack, who thinks the speech ‘ a masterpiece of persuasion’, catches up with the narrator and offers him coffee and cheese cake. The narrator declines the leadership offer made to him and leaves for Mary’s, contemplating the experience. The race situation is beginning to be explosive.