There is a lot of significance to the battle royale of the naked blonde woman scene. She was heavily powdered and rouged; as if to put a mask on to hide her humiliation. She was perfect in every other way and there to excite the black boys, including the invisible man, and the white men. The excitement for the black boys was only for humiliation, for they know that they can never have nor touch the white woman. .
When the woman first appears, there is dead silence, unusual for a smoker party. The smoke filled air might represent the blindness of the white men (for dehumanizing the black boys; and woman) and could also represent the invisible black man. .
This scene is very prejudice because it is in man's nature, white or black, to look at the perfect model of a woman and be attracted to her. This quote tells us that of course they are going to look, "Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked" (154). The white men who brought her out are mocking the black boys for this. They are even afraid to be near her, "Some of the boys stood with lowered heads, trembling. I (the invisible man) felt a wave of fear" (154).
During the initial staging of the naked blonde woman, the invisible man was not aware of the rest of the room. This shows the relation between the woman and the invisible man. It was like he blocked the rest of the room out of his mind because of what he was seeing. He was feeling so many mixed feelings. He knows and accepts his place in society, but also knows that it is not right and he does not agree with it. The invisible man, perhaps the other black boys too, feels he wants "to love her and murder her, to hide from her, and yet to stroke where the small American flag tattooed upon her belly- (155). He does not know why she's there, but it is the same reason he is there. The American flag tattoo is on the woman, but significant of America's freedom, yet only the white men have it.
