Summary and Analysis

Summary

The narrator exits the subway and collapses on the street. Some people help carry him to the home of a kind black woman named Mary. When he wakes up, she asks why he came to New York City from the south. He replies that he wants to be an educator. "I'm in New York, but New York is not in me." The narrator walks away, telling him that Mary should come back. She added that if he wanted to rent a room away from the man's house, she would offer fair rent. The narrator's white jumpsuit attracts hostile gazes at the mansion. He knows he can't live there anymore. He despises the ideals of older proponents of racial progress who are still haunted by dreams of black business empires. He feels sorry for those who still believe in the dream of freedom in post-civil war isolation. He ridicules those who do mundane jobs but wear expensive clothes, influence the manners of polite Southern congressmen, and try to hide their low social status.

As he walks to the elevator, the narrator sees a laughing man he wrote for Dr. Bledsoe holds. He quickly emptied his spit over the man's head, only to discover that the victim was a prominent Baptist minister. He escapes before anyone can catch him. He later persuades an amused porter to take his belongings from the building, only to find out that the man's house has locked him out for 99 years and a day. The narrator takes a room in Mary's apartment. He is frustrated by her constant expectations of becoming a leader in the black community. But she never criticizes him when he doesn't, or when he can't pay for food or rent... Anyway, the narrator begins to feel a desire for activity. He feels a "black speck of anger" within himself. As winter descends on New York, his old urge to give a speech returns.

Analysis

While confined to a hospital, the narrator is thrown into the role of an inmate (rather than a patient), like a veterinarian. Dr. Frankenstein's childbirth scene is interspersed with frequent references to tools and instruments. For example, the narrator (who has always been fascinated by music and musical instruments) imagines herself as an instrument (accordion) played by her two men, who are doctors rather than musicians.

Themes

Racism

Power

Self Interest

Invisibility

Identity

Humility

Submission

Ambition

Dreams