Invisible Man: A Dream or Reality?

As we've gone through all the topics of our Invisible Man seminars over the past few days, the idea that really seemed to stick out in my head was the idea of the invisible man not actually being awake, or within reality throughout the second half (or entire, who knows) novel. The invisible man seems to encounter lots of shifts throughout his journey, some minor and some major, however, a major shift was seen during his episode in the hospital. During this scene, the invisible man is approached by a man that he describes as "a long haired fellow, whose piercing eyes looked down upon [him] out of an intense and friendly face" (239) which almost leads to the allusion of the invisible man being visited by some sort of Christ like figure, such as Jesus. Is this all real? Is the invisible man actually being approached by a holy spirit or is he simply envisioning that he is? If the shift in the hospital is actually seen as a "rebirth" or interaction with Christ, then why was it needed? As the episode goes on the long haired fellow continues to talk to the invisible man, it seems as if some of these questions appear to be answered. When the Jesus type figure continues to ask the invisible man questions, and the invisible man fails to remember anything about himself, the man says to our narrator "you MUST remember" (241) almost as if he is trying to get the invisible man to recognize his role in life and/or go out and fulfill his destiny. Is the invisible man some sort of disciple? Was this dream like experience needed to help guide the invisible man to where he was actually meant to be at the end of the novel? In my opinion, that's exactly what happened: the invisible man needed to fall into his own subconscious, almost as if he was the creator of his own parallel reality, in order to fulfill his destiny in the end. The narrator is asked "who is buckeye the rabbit?" (241) in his limbo like trance and later on replies to the question by saying to himself "somehow I was buckeye the rabbit....." (241), which relates to the movies "Donnie Darko" and "Alice in Wonderland". In the movie "Donnie Darko" the main character is visited by a man in a rabbit suit who helps guide Donnie towards his destiny, similar to Alice in wonderland who is approached by a rabbit with a clock before she falls deep down into the rabbit hole. If the invisible man "is buckeye the rabbit", then is he subconsciously leading himself to his own destiny? Does he allow himself to fall into this parallel trance for a specific reason? It seems as if "the rabbit" concept does actually lead to a journey through a parallel universe/rebirth stage for our protagonist. After the "rebirth" during the hospital scene, the invisible man becomes more enlightened towards what’s actually occurring around him. During the eviction episode involving the old black couple, the invisible man observes the situation around him and says "It was startling: The crowd watching silently, the two white men lugging the chair and trying to dodge the blows and the old woman's face streaming with angry tears as she thrashed her fists at them. I couldn’t believe it" (267); his description of what's going on in Harlem seems to differ from his first impression when he says ".....there were white drivers in traffic who obeyed his [a black man] signals as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Sure I had heard of it, but this was real" (159). The new observation, or way of viewing the true situations around him, shows that the invisible man has now become enlightened, possibly as a result of his "rebirth". Think about it, before the invisible man was so blinded by the idea of Harlem being this sort of fairy tale like environment that he would've never fully stopped to take a glance at what was actually going on around him. So was it the rebirth/parallel universe that helped him become enlightened? Or did that happen all on its own? Who knows.....SO MANY QUESTIONS THAT NEED TO BE ANSWERED. Ya feel me?