Bledsoe's power search

Despite his racial identity, Bledsoe seems to possess a lot of unquestioned power. He goes so far as to say that even though the white men support the school, he is the one in control. "The only ones I even pretend to please are big white folk, and even those I control more than they control me" (142). Bledsoe claims that he is self-empowered but he really only possesses this self-justifying power through his subservience to the white men. This is shown when he admits he "had to act the nigger" to gain the power he currently possesses (143). He has power through educating students to also be submissive to the white men, and his statement that Negroes "haven't been so cocky as they used to," proves that his education is effective (144). Claiming that it is a "power set-up," and that he is "at the controls," shows that Bledsoe sees it as a game, and because he knows what he must do to win control, he is able to maintain it. Bledsoe's power within the school may be true, but he does not have control over the white men like he thinks he does. If his power were completely unconditional, I do not think he would not have sent the invisible man or the veteran away from the school. He sees the invisible man's presence at the school as a threat to his power because the invisible man could possibly reveal Bledsoe's desire to maintain his own image instead of the school's. By sending the invisible man off to New York with fake letters, he tricks him into thinking he will be able to come back in a year, even though Bledsoe has no intentions of this happening. Bledsoe thinks he has control over the white men of the college because he has the ability to trick them into thinking he is supportive of the school's image. He, however, does not have full control over them because he knows the white men have the ability to take his power away if he is caught fighting for only his own image, which is shown through his duping of the invisible man. He has tricked everyone for his own selfish purposes of maintaining control, and by doing so he is limiting his race through their subservience and submission to the white men.