Vocabulary List:

Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" Chapters 6-12

January 14, 2010 (updated January 25, 2010)
Vocabulary study list for Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" (Chapters 6-12).

List created with VocabGrabber http://www.vocabgrabber.com/.
negate
Here in this room my defenses were negated, stripped away, checked at the door as the weapons, the knives and razors and owlhead pistols of the country boys were checked on Saturday night at the Golden Day. I kept my eyes lowered, mumbling "Pardon
dissimulate
Maybe he was dissimulating, like some of the teachers at the college, who, to avoid trouble when driving through the small surrounding towns, wore chauffeur caps and pretended that their cars belonged to white men.
amputate
All my limbs seemed amputated.
noncommittal
"Good-bye," he said, his voice noncommittal.
punctuate
My lungs were compressed like a bellows and each time my breath returned I yelled, punctuating the rhythmical action of the nodes.
insulate
What I mean is, do you believe it possible for us, the two of us, to throw off the mask of custom and manners that insulate man from man, and converse in naked honesty and frankness?"
inhibit
Somehow I felt that Bledsoe and Norton were behind it, and all day I was inhibited in both speech and conduct, for fear that I might say or do something scandalous.
aviary
It was an aviary of tropical birds set near one of the broad windows, through which, as the clapping of wings settled down, I could see two ships plying far out upon the greenish bay below.
amaze
I looked around the room, amazed.
embroider
Snatches of their conversation fluttered to me as they discussed Barbee's talk with enthusiasm, recalled the times of the Founder, their quavering voices weaving and embroidering his story.
splatter
From somewhere across the quiet of the campus the sound of an old guitar-blues plucked from an out-of-tune piano drifted toward me like a lazy, shimmering wave, like the echoed whistle of a lonely train, and my head went over again, against a tree this ti
submerge
I tried, thinking vainly of many names, but none seemed to fit, and yet it was as though I was somehow a part of all of them, had become submerged within them and lost.
inhibited
Somehow I felt that Bledsoe and Norton were behind it, and all day I was inhibited in both speech and conduct, for fear that I might say or do something scandalous.
inflate
In twenty minutes he can inflate that symbol with all the freedom which he'll be too busy working to enjoy the rest of the time.
protrude
A pair of eyes peered down through lenses as thick as the bottom of a Coca-Cola bottle, eyes protruding, luminous and veined, like an old biology specimen preserved in alcohol.
wiggle
A flash of movement drew my eye to the side of the highway now, and I saw a moccasin wiggle swiftly along the gray concrete, vanishing into a length of iron pipe that lay beside the road.
sadistic
Or to give myself some kind of sadistic catharsis.
natty
The man who moved out of the shadow and looked at me sullenly was small, wiry and very natty in his dirty overalls.
iridescent
A huge iridescent bubble seemed to enfold me.
exasperate
I was exasperated.
analyze
Really Pre-Renaissance—and that game has been analyzed, put down in books.
compensate
And remember, you'll be adequately compensated for your experience."
fumble
Here in this room my defenses were negated, stripped away, checked at the door as the weapons, the knives and razors and owlhead pistols of the country boys were checked on Saturday night at the Golden Day. I kept my eyes lowered, mumbling "Pardon me, pardon me," all the way to the drab green locker, where I removed the sandwich, for which I no longer had an appetite, and stood fumbling with the bag, dreading to face the men on my way out.
aquarium
Faces hovered above me like inscrutable fish peering myopically through a glass aquarium wall.
snicker
Let the Negroes snicker and the crackers laugh!
nebulous
It was a most painful position, for at the same time, Mary reminded me constantly that something was expected of me, some act of leadership, some newsworthy achievement; and I was torn between resenting her for it and loving her for the nebulous hope she kept alive.
seep
In spite of me, such notions seep in along with the gimcrack teachers and northern-trained idealists.
humiliate
You don't want to go home to be humiliated, I understand that, because you have some vague notions about dignity.
readjust
You need to become readjusted and get your strength back."
manipulate
Now a man sitting with his back to me, manipulating dials on a panel.
muted
Scenes of a shaded lawn in summer drifted past; I saw a uniformed military band arrayed decorously in concert, each musician with well-oiled hair, heard a sweet-voiced trumpet rendering "The Holy City" as from an echoing distance, buoyed by a choir of muted horns; and above, the mocking obbligato of a mocking bird.
staccato
And I saw the squat man shake his fist angrily over the uplifted faces, yelling something in a staccato West Indian accent, at which the crowd yelled threateningly.
nuance
Then he'd clear his throat and give a deeply intoned order, as though each syllable were pregnant with nuances of profoundly important meaning.
quizzical
"Oh, I didn't come for that, sir," I said, seeing him turn quickly, looking down upon me, his eyes quizzical.
careen
Chapter 12
When I came out of the subway, Lenox Avenue seemed to careen away from me at a drunken angle, and I focused upon the teetering scene with wild, infant's eyes, my head throbbing.
complicate
He is very complicated."
trauma
He'll experience no major conflict of motives, and what is even better, society will suffer no traumata on his account."
ulterior
What if he'd lied out of some ulterior motive of his own?
motif
They were holding me firm and it was fiery and above it all I kept hearing the opening motif of Beethoven's Fifth—three short and one long buzz, repeated again and again in varying volume, and I was struggling and breaking through, rising up, to find myself lying on my back with two pink-faced men laughing down.
swerve
I had kept unswervingly to the path placed before me, had tried to be exactly what I was expected to be, had done exactly what I was expected to do—yet, instead of winning the expected reward, here I was stumbling along, holding on desperately to one of my eyes in order to keep from bursting out my brain against some familiar object swerved into my path by my distorted vision.
garrulous
Holding on grimly, I could hear the sound of someone wading, sloshing, nearby, and an old man's garrulous voice saying, "I tole 'em these here young Nineteen-Hundred boys ain't no good for the job.
agitate
They were arguing some point heatedly, but I was too agitated to listen and simply followed in their shadows, noticing the dull gleam of their polished shoe-leather in the rays of the street lamps.
dirge
It was for a laugh, for a laugh, all the kids had laughed and laughed, and the droll tuba player of the old Elk's band had rendered it solo on his helical horn; with comical flourishes and doleful phrasing, "Boo boo boo booooo, Poor Robin clean"—a mock funeral dirge .
formulate
I kept trying to formulate what I would say to Dr. Bledsoe, and the boys must have turned into their building, for suddenly finding myself outside the gates of the campus and heading down the highway, I turned and ran back to the building.
frustrate
We're both frustrated, understand?
glower
He glowered at me silently, then pointed to the floor.
revise
Somewhere beneath the load of the emotion-freezing ice which my life had conditioned my brain to produce, a spot of black anger glowed and threw off a hot red light of such intensity that had Lord Kelvin known of its existence, he would have had to revise his measurements.
dapper
In my mind's eye I continued to see him gazing into his watch, but now he was joined by another figure; a younger figure, myself; become shrewd, suave and dressed not in somber garments (like his old-fashioned ones) but in a dapper suit of rich material, cut fashionably, like those of the men you saw in magazine ads, the junior executive types in Esquire.
irrevocable
But that bit, that fraction, was irrevocable.
sabotage
"What the hell, you trying to sabotage the company?