I hate getting sick. Why? Because it makes you feel so frustrated/vulnerable/just plain grumpy, especially when you don't know why your body is behaving in a certain way and you're not sure if the doctors know either and so you're not sure if the doctors are prescribing the right methods (probably, more likely than not, medication in this time and day, though you never know what sort of new side effects taking each drug will bring) at all!  Relating it all back to Invisible Man though, I feel like my predicament has helped me better understand why I really didn't understand chapter 11 at all when I first read it.  The narration in chapter 11 is very disjointed and confusing to understand due to the extent of turmoil the narrator was facing at that time- most of it due to the crazy, and probably unhumane circumstances he faces at the "factory hospital" ((245) still a very questionable term...).  I mean his whole description of the "glass and nickel box" (233) he was put in (that I'm pretty sure would make anyone feel rather claustrophobic...) and then the constant playing of Beethoven's famously ominous Fifth Symphony ((232-233) which one has probably heard before/ should hear below if you haven't already looked it up just to be sure- it's quite a popular tune...) just brings to mind a really eeire dangerous torture chamber (especially with the constant electric shocks)...





Doesn't the tune just bring many cheerful memories to mind? Nah, of course it doesn't seem to spell your descent to doom! Okay, sarcasm aside, the chapter also shows how his mental and physical state of shock allows him to be taken advantage of by the doctors and nurses (or course we never know if they are even certifiable doctors or nurses?) and they treat him as a mere object of their experiment- rather than an unwilling individual with his own thoughts of wanting to be freed from the box and feelings of frustration and constant helplessness.  And the motif of being used or partly sacrificed for pure entertainment is again shown on page 237 with the trivial way the experimenters treat the matter of whether or not to shock the narrator and their indifference to and derision of (“An oily face looked in. ‘They really do have rhythm don’t they? Get hot, boy! Get hot!’ it said with a laugh.”) the extreme pain, confusion, and frustration the narrator is experiencing due to their taunting and overall treatment of him as their personal experimental guinea pig.