The End of the Novel is Odd

The scene in which the narrator must burn the contents of his briefcase in order to get out of the dark basement – finds enlightenment, perhaps you could say, is an interesting way to conclude that part of the book. As readers, we could all probably see that the objects building up in the narrator’s briefcase weren’t going to amount to nothing, especially with the deep symbolic significance of each of them, as well as the trouble the narrator had letting go of them.

For a briefcase for which he ran into a burning building for no reason but that it had been with him through everything so far, the burning of (most of) its contents was a surprisingly quiet ending. There were no more speeches or declarations, just the narrator quietly, privately, letting go. It seemed as if the narrator’s detachment from the world as set up by his reflections on invisibility, was continuing.  

Of course, as soon as the narrator discovers that Jack wrote the note telling the narrator that there were Brothers against him, the potential for peace and moving on is ruined and he instead has a cathartic scream-session, still down in the basement. This in itself was also strange to me, and I’m glad we got to discussing this part as a class, because the switch from understanding and acceptance, back into the narrators usual reaction to the many betrayals he’s undergone of frustration and anger (of course, this time far more extreme than prior times), is a little exhausting to read about. Passages just pages before, where the narrator had so much introspection going on, thinking broadly about who was invisible and how, was an interesting change of tone and would suggest more permanent changes. However, once the narrator reverts to the blind anger, and then a slightly new format containing the same exact conclusion of “I won’t be controlled by people anymore – especially not these people who controlled me so far”, I’m left somewhat dissatisfied.

Of course, it seems as if this emotional climax does not set back the narrator in his progression to his final form (that we see) of having accepted invisibility and living alone in the basement, spending his time thinking about the world. But the repetition of his conclusions after finding out of Jack’s betrayal, so similar to his conclusions after finding out about Bledsoe, or the Brotherhood in general, makes me wonder how his mindset actually changed or didn’t. We have so little outside view of what directs the narrator’s actions, and each and every time he goes through an emotional time he is fully convinced that he is now enlightened and a new man and never be controlled again. As well as that, in the epilogue the narrator comes to the decision to no longer “yes” anyone for the sake of pleasing them… which is also a point he’s come to multiple times in the novel already (and then gone back to yessing them, and then back and forth a few more times…). Of course, maybe Wright was just running out of ways to show enlightenment and did mean to represent that this time once and for all the narrator was done with everyone else, but it is an odd note to end the book on and doesn’t make me trust in the narrator’s reliability more than I did during the rest of the book.