Invisible Man 2

Ellison concludes Chapter One with a wonderful example of foreshadowing where he hints of what is to come in the action of the novel. On the very evening that the narrator received the calfskin briefcase that contained “a scholarship to the state college of Negroes” (p. 32), he had a dream that he was at a circus with his grandfather. In his dream, his grandfather told him to open his briefcase whereupon he found an envelope. After opening several more envelopes, the narrator finds an engraved document that he is ordered to read aloud. The document states, “To Whom It May Concern, Keep This Nigger-Boy Running” (p. 33). The effect of this foreshadowing is to prepare the reader for the chain of consequences that will unfold resulting in the narrator’s broken dreams. The briefcase and scholarship must certainly represent the narrator’s aspirations with the foreboding dream representing the despair that will befall him.