Chapter 11
1. What images of this chapter echo the Battle Royal?
All the doctors observing the narrator and he was confused as to what was going on. Blood filled his mouth. The doctors were shocking him.
2. The doctors at the factory hospital shock the narrator until he enters a warm watery world. Look for other images of the womb and birth.
"My mind was blank, as though I had just begun to live."
"But now the music became a distinct wail of female pain."
"I don't have enough room."
"I recoiled inwardly as though the cord were part of me. Then they had it free and the nurse clipped through the belly band and removed the heavy node."
"Then I was told to climb out of the case."
3. Afterwards, the narrator is a blank slate with no memory or identity. How do the doctor's questions develop the image of rebirth?
They emphasize the fact that the narrator doesn't remember the basic and essential information that make him who he is.
4. Why has the narrator been reborn? What aspects of his identity have died?
Because he no longer feels he fits the person he was before. Plus the extreme shocking has probably damaged his brain in some way. He is no longer afraid.
5. Buckeye the Rabbit is the same as Brer Rabbit. Remember the reference to the Tar Baby in chapter 10? In realizing that he is Buckeye the Rabbit, the narrator finds the wit and strength to escape from the machine. How is the machine like Trueblood's clock? How does Buckeye the Rabbit embody the folk wisdom of the narrator's childhood? How has he been reborn into the identity he at first denied upon arriving in New York?
It is what gave them both wit and strength. It is a representation of black culture. Now, the narrator understand that the blackness is part of his identity and he must embrace it.
6. What lesson has the narrator learned?
"Not of important men, nor of trustees and such; for knowing now that there was nothing which I could expect from them, there was no reason to be afraid.
Chapter 12
1. In what way is the narrator childlike?
He dumps water on a man that resembles Bledsoe. He also has become more dependent in others and has lost sight of his goals.
2. How does he permanently lose off the link with his old aspirations and dreams?
He leaves the men's house and becomes more reliant on Mary. He has also lost the drive that caused him to strive for success.
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