Ellison paints the picture of hope for the future of Negroes in America during the narrators last scene in the epilogue. In the narrators dormancy, he often thought about his grandfathers dying words. His grandfather told him that when he dies, that the narrator has to give a good fight in his life. During the time his grandfather was on his deathbed, he told the narrator that he must “play the game of the white man”, that he must do what the white men expect. It was not until the epilogue that the narrator understood what his grandfather meant by this. Did he mean say ‘yes’ because he knew that the principle was greater than the men, greater than the vicious power and all the methods used to corrupt its name? Was it that we of all had to affirm the principle, the plan in whose name we had been brutalized and sacrificed? ” The narrator comes to the realization that his grandfather knew that he understood his role in American society, that there is a chance. He also realizes there is is hope for the future generations of Negroes, if Negroes could put up a fight with whites.
The narrator feels as if he should continue the fight that his grandfather has influenced upon him. He feels as if he should strive for the future of Africans in America. The Narrator knows that blacks will be fighting for peace for many generations, knowing that there will come a day when the war will come to an end if they fight long enough. With the narrator coming to a realization, he sides that he is going to come out of his truancy and take control of what he thinks is right.
