Quote 19
What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do? What a waste, what a senseless waste!…I would have to weigh many things carefully before deciding and there would be some things that would cause quite a bit of trouble, simply because I had never formed a personal attitude toward so much. I had accepted the accepted attitudes and it had made life seem simple… (13.37)
Here, the narrator admits his long-time passivity towards his life. He had once been content to merely follow societal dictates, but this quote indicates that he recognizes the need to develop his own opinions.
Quote 20
For one thing, they seldom know where their personalities end and yours begins; they usually think in terms of "we" while I have always tended to think in terms of "me" – and that has caused some friction, even with my own family. Brother Jack and the others talked in terms of "we," but it was a different, bigger "we." (14.187)
The narrator is used to thinking for himself and finds it difficult to speak for an entire group of people.
Quote 21
No, I thought, shifting my body, they're the same legs on which I've come so far from home. And yet they were somehow new. The new suit imparted a newness to me. It was the clothes and the new name and the circumstances. It was a newness too subtle to put into thought, but there it was. I was becoming someone else. (16.6)
Ellison really dramatizes the idea that joining the Brotherhood means the narrator is becoming a whole new person.