Sadly, the narrator accepts this prize as an award well worth his humiliation. He cannot yet understand his grandfather's message because he still refuses to spit out the blood and speak for himself. Overall the powerful men represent the wealthy minority of the population who only use others as play things, where as the narrator wanted this piece of society to see him as a intelligent young man, all they saw in him was a plaything.
In chapter 2 this continues with a memory of the narrators from his days in collage. Mainly one particular day, Founder's day where the narrator is given the honor of .
driving one trustee, Mr. Norton, around the school. Norton asks him to just drive since he is early for his next event. Ellison remarks on the hypocrisy embedded in Norton from the very beginning, mentioning that he has held the white man's burden for forty years. The horn blasting represents a lesson to the narrator, which he refuses yet to hear: in attempting to suppress who he is, he in fact creates a larger disaster. However, Norton is not the type of character who would be the most knowledgeable on how the narrator should spend his life and the reader is not surprised to learn that he cares about the narrator's destiny because he claims it as his own. The old faded picture of his daughter strikes the narrator not because she is beautiful as Norton claims but because of how she is presented. She is presented to him as what he is suppose to be, he is not an individual according to Norton, He is a replacement for a daughter Norton lost. Norton is a piece of society the narrator hopes to achieve through collage only to find that Norton is not one to be followed.
In chapter seven you begin to see how the "majority" of society sees him they don't as he goes down into the subway before his first trip on the subway he feels all important, With letters in hand which are suppose to help him find a job he walks down feeling someone will take notice, and he will stand out in a crowd, however he is immediately made to feel small and insignificant in reaching New York.
