University President vs. Lunatic: Who Would You Be?
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison draws important distinctions between two types of people. The first type of person is represented by Dr. A. Herbert Bledsoe, the President of Tuskegee University. Bledsoe represents black people who are willing to conform to the desires of the white people in charge in order to get ahead and gain social status. The second type of person is represented by the unnamed veteran (I will be calling him The Vet). He is essentially the opposite of Bledsoe in the way that he does not value white validation/success over being true to himself and his race. Throughout the book, The Narrator (the invisible man) is seeking to determine what he does and does not value, and is attempting to identify his values relative to the aforementioned two groups. He does so by learning from the people around him. Bledsoe’s way of thinking can be described as cold and calculated. One of the best quotes demonstrating how Bledsoe thinks can be f...