As the narrator is remembering throughout all his memoirs and tries to understand past events that make him question himself, who myself is? He states his thought of him in the reading to enhance the reader to analyze key ideas "I was naive". Events such as the "equality" of races after their grandparents who were slaves and went through hardships during Civil War and after it ended up believing they had achieved segregation with whites. The beginning of the story is a systematic preconception for me, as the reader emphasizes his feelings based on his historical background and question myself if he is going through a hard moment, since he feels guilt and confused about what his grandfather told his father while dying in bed. It is a riddle for me, for him "It became a constant puzzle which lay unanswered in the back of my mind" These were the words his grandfather told his father "Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight" His grandfather confessed also that he's been a traitor, spy, and that their life is a war. This was a bitter-sour moment. All these words took over total attention more than his death. It was shocking. A treachery.
The narrator question others but he rejects their answers and found out that he possesses the answer to "reality" of the battle royal experience. His father is a ghost of slavery and to get rid of the past he needs to fix that part to handle present. Being haunted by his grandfather's words and a speech given at the school graduation he felt such irrational guilt and fear saying that "humility was the secret indeed, the very essence of progress," I would say is a key for success and advancement of black Americans; confusion and more questions are developed, although new doors were "open" for the future. .
He was praised after the speech and was asked to give a speech to the town's leaders at the hotel ballroom.