Reverend Homer A. Barbee

Idea: Homer Barbee transforms the Founder into a mythological figure. Recount and analyze his speech to demonstrate the validity of this idea.

Idea: This transformation is designed to have an effect on the students at the college. Explain.

Idea: Barbee's blindness, noticed by the narrator only at the end of the speech, furthers Ellison's use of the motif of blindness and invisibility. What is Ellison suggesting about the the ideology preached by the college and Barbee, especially regarding its effect on the young men and women who attend the college.