A man named Niccolò Machiavelli once said: “Men in general judge more by appearances than by reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration. By this he meant having eyes, but not everyone has the gift of seeing things and situations as they really are. Having sight does not mean being able to see with both eyes, but being able to separate thoughts and make accurate judgment. What meets the eye is not always the true meaning of the subject matter. In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, the main character is constantly confronted with situations that have a deeper meaning than what we see. In The Invisible Man, the main character witnesses important things and facts about things and people, but is unable to construct a deeper meaning from them. The main character lived in the 1930s and was born in the South, then continues most of his life in Harlem, New York. The 1930s were difficult times for African Americans, and while drawing on his grandfather's final deathbed words, in which he said, "My son, after I am gone, I want you to continue the good fight. I never told you this, but our life is a war and I've been a traitor all my life, a spy in the enemy's country since I gave up my gun during Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion's mouth, I want you to defeat them. with yeses, undermine them with smiles, grant them to death and destruction, let them swell you until they vomit or burst open."(16). The narrator continued his life in the south and after leaving the south to go to Harlem with his grandfather dyeing the words in his heart He could not understand his grandfather due to the lack of knowledge and experience in the world. real The main character lacks... middle of paper ... hired him to only say what he wants people to hear When Brother Jack's eyes pop out, the facade he is trying to promote to. people is revealed. All the while, the narrator didn't know about his eye: "I looked at him from his face to the glass, thinking he had ripped himself open just to confuse me...And the others knew it ever since. the beginning. They weren't even surprised. I looked at the eyes..." (474) Throughout the story, the narrator thought that the Brotherhood's intentions were good, but that it was not. than political advantages. The narrator now sees that he cannot believe or trust everything he sees because it is only an illusion, just like Brother Jack's eye. The glass eye symbolizes truth, revealing how objects present a deeper meaning than what they actually imply. Similar to Clifton using the Sambo doll, he plays a role defined by the Brotherhood.