Summary and Analysis

Summary

During the celebration, a belligerent drunk asks the narrator to sing an old Negro spiritual. Before the narrator can answer, Brother Jack orders the man out of the room, and the crowd falls into an awkward silence, finally broken by the narrator's almost hysterical laughter. Ask the narrator to dance, and the party continues.

Later that night, returning to Mary's house, the narrator tells her to leave the rent on the table the next morning and move into the apartment where her brother Jack lives, in order to avoid her emotional farewell scene with Mary. Decided it was best to move. he is available

The next morning he wakes up by knocking on the steam pipe. Searching for something to strum his pipes, he discovers that Mary's coin-filled cast-iron bench is in the shape of "a very black Negro with red lips and a wide mouth." He hits the pipe on the bench, shatters it, and desperately hides the shards in an attempt to collect coins. But when Mary knocks on the door and tells him to come to the kitchen for breakfast, he hastily stuffs them into his coat pocket and plans to dispose of them on his way downtown.

Realizing that he has no choice but to talk to Mary, he goes to her kitchen and tries to hand her a $100 bill, but she initially refuses. Suddenly, the kitchen is overrun by a horde of cockroaches and thrown off the steam pipe. After helping Mary kill cockroaches and tidy up the kitchen, he goes shopping for new clothes and finds a new apartment. Along the way, he unsuccessfully tries to remove the broken bank but eventually decides to add it to his briefcase items.

Analysis

The narrator's arrival in Chthonian reveals a dramatic change in his surroundings as he moves from the warm and safe of Mary's home into a cold, white world of danger and violence. The narrator also moves from a world of sound (symbolized by Maria's singing voice) to a world of silence (symbolized by the instruments hanging from his neck and the silent radio in Chthonian).

As with the previous chapters, these chapters provide many examples of Ellison's wordplay. For example, when the narrator is reluctant to join the Brotherhood, Brother Jack says, "It's a party. You might like it." It may refer to

Themes

Racism

Power

Self Interest

Invisibility

Identity

Humility

Submission

Ambition

Dreams