One of the most prevalent themes in The Invisible Man is racism. As the main character, the invisible man, tries to find his own identity, he struggles with the intolerance that he discovers among his fellow Americans. On one of his journeys where the invisible man encounters intense racism is at the Battle Royal scene. In this scene he comes upon an expression of blatant despicable racism. Throughout the entire battle the races were separated. While the young black men did all the atrocious fighting the white men sat and watched for there mire pleasure. The white blindfolds that were places among the black men symbolized the blinders white men imposed on the black men. At the end of the battle the invisible man gave a speech saying that all black men were equal. When the white men heard this they made the black man repeat himself until he was embarrassed; "What you just said!" "Social responsibility, sir," I said. "You weren't being smart, were you boy?" he said, not unkindly. "No, sir!" "You sure that about 'equality' was a mistake?" "Oh, yes, sir," I said. "I was swallowing blood." "Well, you had better speak more slowly so we can understand. We mean to do right by you, but you've got to know your place at all times." (p.17) .
In the Golden Day' scene racism is seen from a black perspective in The Invisible Man. The invisible man takes the white founder to a bad neighborhood in the car, and the white man becomes very anxious. Since he is so restless the invisible man takes the white man into Golden Day, which is a bar, so he can get some whiskey to settle his nerves. Yet the white man wont go inside because he is to nervous. When the invisible man goes into the bar to get some whiskey to bring out to the car the bartender says that if they white man is too good to come into his bar he won't give him whiskey to bring to the car. The Invisible man is forced to bring the white man into the car where he is made fun of discriminated against because he is white.
