Invisible Man: Chapter 12 Summary & Analysis

When the narrator exits the subway into Harlem, he is suddenly overcome by weakness. Barely able to walk, he nearly collapses.

A large black woman named Mary Rambo asks the narrator what’s wrong. He replies that he’s just weak, and tells her he’s staying at Men’s House. Mary Rambo tells him that Men’s House is nowhere to stay for a man in his condition, and with the help of another man named Ralston the narrator is taken to stay at Mary Rambo’s house. Mary is apparently well known in Harlem for helping those in need. Mary puts the barely-conscious narrator to bed.

The narrator awakens in Mary Rambo’s house. Mary is across from the bed, reading the paper. Mary tells the narrator that he can leave after he’s had some soup, and that she could tell that he came from a hospital. The narrator says that he didn’t want to trouble anybody.

Mary asks the narrator both why he came to New York and what he intends to become. The narrator tells her that he used to want to be an “educator,” but that now he doesn’t know. Mary tells him to make sure to do something that is a “credit to the race.” She tells him that the young black people are the ones who have to change society. Finally, she tells the narrator not to become corrupted by New York, and that he can always come back if he wants to rent a room.

Feeling somewhat better, the narrator returns to Men’s House. The lobby of the building seems different to the narrator, full of men who are “caught up in illusions.” He feels contempt for the collection of college boys, washed-up preachers, and well-dressed nobodies. Knowing that the men will disdain him when they learn that his dream of college is over, he realizes that he can no longer stay at Men’s House.

In the lobby, the narrator hears a man holding forth whom he mistakes for Dr. Bledsoe. Instinctively, he empties a spittoon over the man’s head. The narrator immediately realizes that the man is not Bledsoe, but is in fact a prominent Baptist preacher. The narrator runs out of the lobby before anyone can catch him. Later, he pays a porter to slip his things out of the building. The “amused” porter tells him that he has been banned for “ninety nine years and a day.”

The narrator moves into Mary Rambo’s house, which he finds pleasant except for Mary’s constant talk about “leadership and responsibility.” The compensation money from the factory quickly runs out, and the narrator must look for work again. Despite his lack of funds, Mary doesn’t criticize the narrator, feeding him as well as ever at dinner.

When the narrator isn’t looking for work, he begins to read obsessively at the library. He also wanders the city late at night when he has a little money. Mary is his only friend in New York, a force of stability in his life. She also makes the narrator feel as if something is expected from him, some future contribution of leadership. The narrator passes the time this way until the winter.

The narrator remarks that his time in New York had already changed him, filling him with a voice of anger and revenge. The narrator compares his new feelings of hot anger to the “ice cap” of his old way of thinking. He remarks that slowly but surely, the ice is beginning to melt. He remembers how much he wished to return to college, but also knows that his dream has been severed in one “snap!”

The narrator hears all the contradictory voices of the past swirling in his head. He is suddenly filled with the desire to make speeches. As he walks through the city, words he can barely control spill from his lips. One day, he notices that winter has come.