Chapter Two

In the second chapter, Invisible man drives one of the founding father's, Mr. Norton, of the college he is attending around. While killing time, they see Jim Trueblood. His wife and his daughter are currently pregnant, he is the father of both children. Norton approaches Trueblood and verifies if what he has heard is true. Trueblood goes on to explain that it started because it was so cold during the night, they all "sleep together" (p. 53). In an odd sleeping arrangement, the daughter slept in between her parents. With Ellison, we are really seeing the concept of innocence be questioned and tattered by sex. "sometimes a man can look at a little ole pigtail gal and see him a whore" (p. 59) Once Trueblood has raped his daughter, he views her as worthless and calls his own child a derogatory term for an act he violently forced on her while she was asleep. Ellison is using sex to create a visceral feeling in his reader, ruining it's romanticism and making it about negative transformation.