Regret is a theme that is carried consistently throughout the book Invisible Man. Many mistakes the narrator makes are brought up again and again, and many of them continuously hurt him. The Invisible Man takes Mr. Norton to Golden Day after exposing him to the shocking situation with Jim Trueblood and consequently is kicked out of school by Mr. Bledsoe. This one decision he makes to let Mr. Norton talk to a “savaged” black man leads him on a totally different and arguably more difficult path than he would have originally been on if he had taken a naive Mr. Norton away from the situation.
However, much greater regrets are also explored. For example, his regret of being submissive at certain times and violent during others. Either way, he’s being some form of a stereotypical black man, isn’t he? He’s either answering “Yes, suh,” or being an “uncivilized savage/brute” black man.
What surprised me most in the end was how little he seemed to regret. He looked back on his life, reflecting, and sort of admired, in a way, the life he had lived. He learned a great deal. It was shocking to go from him worrying and stressing about the choices he had made and the paths he had taken, to him being seemingly at peace. He looked upon his life with a sort of content feeling. Maybe even a feeling of satisfaction. It appeared that he was thanking his old self, for making so many "mistakes." Perhaps he forgave himself, in the end.
