The narrator first commits himself to an organization called the “Brotherhood” in Invisible Man during Chapter 14. He does so when he realizes his financial debt to Mary and finally decides to join the group for money. In order to do so, the narrator is required to take drastic measures by adopting a new identity and abandoning his entire past life. The Brotherhood is a self-proclaimed activist group that wants the narrator to deliver speeches for their cause. However, the “cause” they are supposedly fighting for is unclear, and the group appears to hold no core values nor specific viewpoints. So far in the novel, the true intentions of the Brotherhood are yet to be explicitly revealed.
The reason the narrator joins the Brotherhood, other than for the money, is because the group tells him they work to fight for racial justice, a cause that the narrator has come to align himself with. He wants to protest and speak out against racism like he is promised, but many signs point that the Brotherhood has other plans. One of the initial red flags is when a Brotherhood member’s initial reaction upon seeing the narrator, is wondering aloud if he is “black enough” for their needs. The narrator finds this perplexing, and this comment begins to plant suspicions of the Brotherhood. This statement reveals that the recruitment of the narrator is performative and that they care more about his appearance than his actual person.
A major event that upsets the narrator is his transfer to a different location, during which he is instructed to speak on women’s rights instead. The narrator does not share the passion for this topic as he does for racial justice, and in fact, he is very uneducated on the topic, merely reading a pamphlet for his speech. This action makes it glaringly obvious that the Brotherhood does not care about social justice, for they have no issue placing underqualified people to speak on issues they do not even care about. Much is left to be questioned about the Brotherhood, but one thing is clear: their intent is not pure, and they have motives other than working towards social equality. Perhaps the Brotherhood is working towards financial gain (the explanation I am leaning towards believing) or building a following for other reasons.
I think your claim that the Brotherhood is working towards financial gain is definitely an interesting idea and I hadn't thought of it like that. I initially got the impression that they may just be working for power and influence in general. By giving such vague speeches and constantly trying to push the politically correct narrative, it seems like they're just trying to blindly rally as many people as they can. This would definitely further their cult-like vibe.
ReplyDeleteI had the same impression that the Brotherhood's main goal was to gain followers and power, but it would definitely make sense for them to also be motivated by financial gain. The Brotherhood clearly isn't motivated by ethics, especially considering their "usage" of the narrator to diversify the group and speak for them while limiting and condemning his ideas.
DeleteI totally agree with your post. It seems to me like the brotherhood is really about gaining power, because as you said they sent him to work on the women's problem when he has absolutely no experience in that topic, and would be much better suited to focus on race. He was moved to the women's question as a punishment more than anything, so that right there tells you they're all about power.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that there are a lot of red flags which signify that the Brotherhood doesn't actually care about their supposed cause and instead just wants power or money. Some other ones are that they hired the Narrator not because the content of his eviction speech matched their ideals really well but instead just because he was a good speaker that could influence a lot of people. Along with that Wrestrum tells the Narrator to get rid of the chain link he got. Wrestrum values uniformity in the Brotherhood over an object of actual significance to their alleged goal.
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