Brain Surgery

As the novel moves on into the next chapter, we find the speaker the speaker stunned badly after the accident. At first he is unsure of where he is or who he is. Confused and disoriented, he struggles to understand what's going on, but despite being surrounded by doctors and nurses, it seems as if he wasn't even there. His mind is detached from the outside, almost separate from his own body. Lying there in the hospital, he undergoes a strange procedure in which a machine is supposed to produce "the results of a prefrontal lobotomy...and the result is a complete change of personality" (236).

What is inevitable to ignore is how this procedure will change the speaker. If this operation is as effective as the doctor claims, wouldn't his mind change after it? According to the doctor “he will live as he has to live, and with absolute integrity. He'll experience no major conflict of motives, and what is even better society will suffer no traumata on his account" (236). What is he referring to by saying this? Could it be that a good citizen, a man of no burden to society is that which has no conflicts of motives? Apparently the best interest of society is to have a bunch of automatons, walking around life with no motives or opinion. A person like this is, to the burden of society, weightless, or even invisible.

After the operation, the speaker finds himself in a sort of glass container, observed vigilantly by the people outside. From his position, he is able to observe them as well, and metaphorically observes society. He is disturbed by what he sees, as he notices flaws and ugly details on his subjects, but then he thinks "we are all human" (239). This perhaps, could be a moment of understanding, as he looks at the flawed humanity, determined to accept it. It feels as if he wasn't human anymore. The doctors, indeed don't see him humanlike, only as a result from an experimental operation. This could be the beginning of the speaker's understanding of his invisibility. He can see that society in a detached way, but somehow, that society can't see him. In some way, he can't see himself either, since he isn't even able to remember his own name.

It’s still unclear if the speaker’s personality was changed, but he certainly started to view his world around him in a new way. Perhaps this is only the beginning of the speaker’s renovation, and he will eventually grow to understand that concept of invisibility.