If you can't join us for our classics club book discussion at the store tonight, here are the questions we'll be examining!
1. Why doesn’t Ellison give the invisible man a name? Does that make you feel more or less able to identify with him? Do you think the reader is meant to identify with him?
2. What do you think about the idea that the narrator was “invisible”? Was he really?
3. What scene or image sticks with you the most, and why?
4. What do you think about the grandfather’s deathbed speech? Was he right or wrong about the world?
5. Why did Tod Clifton leave the Brotherhood to sell dancing Sambo dolls? What did the Invisible Man mean when he said Clifton had "fallen outside of history"?
6. How did you respond to the epilogue?
7. Invisible Man won the National Book Award in 1952. Ellison described his book as not quite realism, but not quite racial protest either, noting that so many African American characters (by both white and black authors) lacked intellectual depth. What did you think of Ellison’s style?
8. How do the themes in this book apply to American society today, especially with talk about a “post-racial” society? Is there such a thing? How would the invisible man have responded to such talk?
1. Why doesn’t Ellison give the invisible man a name? Does that make you feel more or less able to identify with him? Do you think the reader is meant to identify with him?
2. What do you think about the idea that the narrator was “invisible”? Was he really?
3. What scene or image sticks with you the most, and why?
4. What do you think about the grandfather’s deathbed speech? Was he right or wrong about the world?
5. Why did Tod Clifton leave the Brotherhood to sell dancing Sambo dolls? What did the Invisible Man mean when he said Clifton had "fallen outside of history"?
6. How did you respond to the epilogue?
7. Invisible Man won the National Book Award in 1952. Ellison described his book as not quite realism, but not quite racial protest either, noting that so many African American characters (by both white and black authors) lacked intellectual depth. What did you think of Ellison’s style?
8. How do the themes in this book apply to American society today, especially with talk about a “post-racial” society? Is there such a thing? How would the invisible man have responded to such talk?