Invisible Man
Chapter Two
He also flashes back to the beauty and the serenity of his college campus. He imagines walking down the paths. He remembers a bronze statue of the college founder who is seen with a veil in front of a kneeling slave’s face.
The narrator interpreted it to mean that the founder is lifting the veil, that the veil could just as well be covering the slave’s eyes. He remembers that when a bird stands on it, it gives it more meaning. Also remembers Founders’ Day and how the millionaires who founded the school arrived from the North, wrote some checks, and left.
The narrator is privileged one day to drive Mr. Norton, one of the college’s founders, around. Mr. Norton instructs him to drive him wherever he pleases before his next meeting.
He offers to satisfy Mr. Norton so that Dr. Bledsoe; the college president, can receive good commendations about him. Mr. Norton reminisces on the college’s founding and later, the narrator reaches the end of the campus.
He then turns to an unfamiliar road within the campus. Mr. Norton tells the narrator that college is very important to him and that it is part of his life. He continues that he feels proud to be one of the founders of the college.
That’s why he loves visiting the college to see how things go on there. He also believes that his fate is in the hands of the college and invariably the students.
Mr. Norton also talks about his late daughter whom he remembers as having been perfect. He shows a framed portrait of her and the narrator sees that she is beautiful. He explains that she fell ill during their vacation in the Italian Alps and then Munich.
He says further that everything he does is in her memory. He also says that his future depends on the narrator’s future. The narrator then promises to relay his fate to the millionaire.
Mr. Norton also goes the extra mile telling the narrator that what he did in opening the school affected the race of the narrator. The narrator continues driving, they pass a series of shacks and log cabins, and Mr. Norton comments on the cabin of Jim Trueblood. The narrator then remembers that he shouldn’t have driven by the cabin.
He tells Mr. Norton that the cabin was built during slavery. They then see two pregnant women washing clothes in the front yard. The Narrator then narrates the story of Trueblood who impregnated both his wife and daughter at the same time.
Mr. Norton is so surprised by this revelation and how he is able to survive such a heinous sin and wishes to talk with Jim Trueblood. He wishes to help him but Jim Trueblood tells Mr. Norton that they have been living fine since then.
He explains further how the Sheriff and other white men were so fascinated with his story that they kept asking for more details, feeding him, and giving him tobacco. He says the black people abandoned him and his family but changed their attitudes when they saw that the whites were giving him special treatment.
Jim Trueblood tries to defend himself for the dastardly act blaming it on a dream. He says they all slept on a bed because they couldn’t afford to heat the house in the cold. He says his daughter Matty Lou is between him and his wife. He says the girl had had sex before probably with a boy she had been talking about.
He continues that he was awake till 4 am thinking about an old girlfriend before he had the dream. In the dream, Jim Trueblood was searching for one Mr. Broadnax to get some meat.
He later reaches his house and goes in to find himself in a bedroom that smelt of women. He says a white lady that dressed in a white silk nightgown stepped out of a grandfather clock and grabbed him around the neck.
He says he was scared to touch her because she was white; he then threw her onto the bed to stop her. He then ran for the grandfather clock and traveled around in its secret passages until he ran for the graveyard and a burst of light electrified him.
He woke up to see that he was having sex with Matty Lou his daughter. The daughter held on to her father while the escapade was on, and Trueblood realized that his daughter liked it. He compared the situation to a man in Birmingham who shot at police until they burnt him alive in his house.
At this juncture, the narrator interrupts and says they need to leave and get back to school. Mr. Norton is interested in the story, so Trueblood continues with the narrative. Kate, Trueblood’s wife later woke up and found her husband and the daughter having sex. The woman screamed, throwing something at him, and pointed a shotgun at him to stop the immoral act.
The woman then got hold of an axe to stop her husband. Matty Lou was also later in shock while the father thought she was dead. He tells Mr. Norton that the blacks ostracized him when they heard the story. He says he narrated the dream to his wife and daughter but it didn’t help matters.
His wife then advised him to leave. He declined to take the advice because of his family. His wife then called Auntie Cloe to come and abort the pregnancy for them as she didn’t like the condition they were in and since her husband refused to leave. Trueblood considered abortion an additional sin if carried out.
He then threatened to kill Auntie Cloe if she yielded to his wife’s demand. He concludes that he doesn’t understand why the whites were so generous to him as a sinner at that time.
The narrator discovers that Mr. Norton’s countenance changes and is ready to leave the place. He then gives Jim Trueblood a hundred-dollar bill. Mr. Norton then demands for a stimulant especially a whiskey to calm down his nerves. The narrator then decides to take him to the closest joint which is the Golden “Day.” The place also serves as an asylum for insane people.