The Narrator’s “House in the World”

House in the World
I’m looking for a house
In the world
Where the white shadows
Will not fall.

There is no such house,
Dark brothers,
No such house
At all.

— Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes’ “House in the World” is a powerful poem with two distinct voices in the different stanzas. During Isandro’s recitation we discussed how the first stanza features a young black voice looking for a place of comfort free of white culture’s influence and oppression. The second stanza acts as the voice of an older black voice warning the younger individual that he has searched every corner of the world but has found there is no place free of white influence. The discussion prompted me to look into how this idea applied to the narrator in Invisible Man. I looked into how the narrator’s hope that he can gain some power in the world without any white influence is gradually diminished through the novel. The voice in the first stanza is like the narrator at the beginning of Invisible Man, hopeful and ambitious, but the narrator by the end of the novel is like the voice in the second stanza, realizing the harsh realities and bleakness of the world.

In the beginning of Invisible Man, the narrator is quite naïve. In the battle royale scene in Chapter 1, the narrator is pushed around and does not initiate any actions of his own. In class we talked about how the narrator is almost in a dreamlike state where he is not fully aware of his surroundings and he is not fully aware of his own actions. This relates to how he does not really react when the white men abuse him for their entertainment because of his race. Finally, when he receives the scholarship for the college, he is still hopeful for a new beginning and the prospect of the success the education can lead him towards.

Once the narrator is at the university he ignores the signs of racism that are even present at the university. He is oblivious enough to take Mr. Norton on a path that leads them Mr. Trueblood. The first signs of the narrator realizing the impossibility of a black man finding success without white influence is when he sees Mr. Bledsoe’s mask. When the narrator first meets Mr. Bledsoe he holds a great respect for him and sees him as a role mode, but this image is shattered when he realizes Mr. Bledsoe’s appearance is all a front. When the narrator sees Mr. Bledsoe lose his temper with him, then immediately reconstruct his appearance to talk to Mr. Norton, the narrator sees that Mr. Bledsoe has built his power and success by essentially kissing up to the white men with power. Despite this slight discouragement, the narrator is still hopeful to find his place when he is sent to the north.

 The narrator’s new attitude is apparent when he is skeptical of Brockway. When the narrator meets Brockway he is exposed to a black man who has a false sense of ownership and power but who lives in a constant state of paranoia. Brockway is completely under the control of the white executives of the company and constantly afraid for his job. This experience grows the narrator’s awareness of the realities of a black man’s life in a white world.

When the narrator meets the Brotherhood, he is more cautious than ever before, even rejecting the job offer at first. He eventually accepts their job offer and pours his life into working for the organization. He truly believes that he can work hard and succeed within the organization, even remarking that the Brotherhood is the one organization in America where he could rise to the top. After a long period of time he realizes that he does not hold any importance in the organization and the white men have complete power over him. He is used by the Brotherhood as a face for their organization even telling him at one point that he is paid to talk not to think. The Brotherhood controls him so completely that at one point he is moved away from his work entirely to work on women’s rights. The organization he devotes his life to eventually turns out to be a scam that exploits the black community of Harlem.

This ending takes us full circle to the prologue where we meet the narrator after the events of the entire novel have taken place. The narrator has embraced his invisibility and now appears to live apart from society, on his own. At each step through the book, the narrator’s aspirations are shrunken as he learns the extent of white culture’s influence. In the very beginning of the book the narrator believes he can get an education and hold a position of significance. Next he believes that even if he cannot get an education he can hold a job of significance, but after this sense of hope is erased, he holds onto his hope. He believes that a specific organization supposedly meant to work for racial equally is where he is destined to make a difference, but even that is filled with white men with power exploiting the black population. The narrator realizes there is no place where he can hold power without white culture overpowering him in a similar way that the second voice in “House in the World” realizes there is no place where he can find peace without white culture’s contamination. It is arguable that even when the narrator is supposedly invisible and removed from society, he is under the control of white people in power. The narrator is obsessed with this fight against Monopolated Light & Power. He dedicates all his time wiring light bulbs to waste the company’s power, yet it makes no difference to the company. Although this waste of their energy may appear as a small victory for the narrator, even here, his life is run by the executives of a company who are not even aware of his existence.