The simple question of the effect that the Brotherhood has on the narrator's life is seemingly easy to answer. The Brotherhood gives him a job, allows him to speak and be a leader in a social movement, and propels him in a direction that the narrator believe will allow him to get in a good position in the future. But, is the Brotherhood really all that good for the Narrator?
The Brotherhood seems to put us in a familiar place. The narrator may simply be being used. As in the battle royal scene at the beginning of the book, where the narrator is simply being used for the entertainment of the rich white patrons of the town, in this case he again may just be a tool for the Brotherhood to advance their cause. In both cases the narrator is working towards giving speeches, never really doubting the direction he is being pointed in or the situations he is put in. As how the narrator never questions the people pushing him around in the beginning of the book, he also never doubts the Brotherhood, even if he does not completely agree with all of their ideologies and methods.
The initial drive for the narrator to accept the job is money. The narrator wants to pay back Mary and he accepts the job, but as soon as he does, he complete forgets this reason. This can be seen in how when Ras the exhorter mentions women and money as the reasons why he thinks the narrator and the others join the Brotherhood it does not resonate with him at all. Money is important to everyone, but as soon as they have enough they take it for granted, never looking back to the real reasons that they did the things that they did.
The narrator also believes that he can achieve a high socially respectable position by working with the Brotherhood and working his way up. This very much points to the narrator still clinging to the image of Bledsoe being in a very socially respectable position. The narrator cannot get rid of the idea that a position like that is the final goal as he had been leading his whole life, up until he was expelled, to attain that.
With the narrator just wanting to give speeches and achieve a good social position the Brotherhood could very easily just be exploiting the narrator for their own advancement with the narrator not realizing it at all, similar to how he was used previously for entertainment.
The Brotherhood seems to put us in a familiar place. The narrator may simply be being used. As in the battle royal scene at the beginning of the book, where the narrator is simply being used for the entertainment of the rich white patrons of the town, in this case he again may just be a tool for the Brotherhood to advance their cause. In both cases the narrator is working towards giving speeches, never really doubting the direction he is being pointed in or the situations he is put in. As how the narrator never questions the people pushing him around in the beginning of the book, he also never doubts the Brotherhood, even if he does not completely agree with all of their ideologies and methods.
The initial drive for the narrator to accept the job is money. The narrator wants to pay back Mary and he accepts the job, but as soon as he does, he complete forgets this reason. This can be seen in how when Ras the exhorter mentions women and money as the reasons why he thinks the narrator and the others join the Brotherhood it does not resonate with him at all. Money is important to everyone, but as soon as they have enough they take it for granted, never looking back to the real reasons that they did the things that they did.
The narrator also believes that he can achieve a high socially respectable position by working with the Brotherhood and working his way up. This very much points to the narrator still clinging to the image of Bledsoe being in a very socially respectable position. The narrator cannot get rid of the idea that a position like that is the final goal as he had been leading his whole life, up until he was expelled, to attain that.
With the narrator just wanting to give speeches and achieve a good social position the Brotherhood could very easily just be exploiting the narrator for their own advancement with the narrator not realizing it at all, similar to how he was used previously for entertainment.
Although I do agree with you that the narrator does wish to reach a respectable position in society and have a voice, he is aware that he needs to make himself "visible" in the world, which is something Bledsoe didn't care one bit about. The narrator is ultimately achieving power through his own ideas and speechmaking talents, even if he serves as a tool of the Brotherhood. He is paving a path for himself by empowering his own race in a meaningful way, not in a superficial way as Bledsoe did through "education" that just created students that adhered better to the system.
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