	The prophetic turn which the text then takes continues the mingling of hope and fear, as Virgil tells Dante of the political unrest which troubles Florence.  The tone remains constant even in this departure from the narration, ending, as does this first Canto, with hope of a peaceful end.
	The tone of this first Canto is preparatory for what the rest of the work will bring, never becoming too engrossed in despair, yet keeping that serious and weighty subject of hell in perspective.  While hope can at times seem all but thoroughly crushed, the author keeps it alive amidst fear and mystery, preventing the narrative from having a purely dismal effect.

	One's place in society is an affect of how one is treated.  The nature of his life depends in at least a small degree upon what others want or allow him to do.  In the novel Invisible Man by Ralph Elllison, whites and white society play significant roles.  At various points, they are sometimes patronizing towards blacks or antagonistic.  They are also a prominent disillusioning force in the novel.  Without white influence, the narrator's life would have been vastly different.
	As patronizers, white groups play a powerful part in influencing the narrator.  One of the first scenes related by the narrator is that of the "battle royal".  The significance of this scene as far as it relates to patrimony is that the narrator has gone to a "smoker" to deliver a speech to a group of the wealthiet and most prominent white men in town.  He has been chosen out of his entire graduating class to have this honour, and he looks forward to the deliverance of the speech., carried by the "triumph for the whole community."  As will be discussed in a moment, things did not go as he had thought, but after he finally delivers his speech, its content of humility and social responsibility is greatly praised by the white crowd.  He is applauded, and sent home with a new briefcase and a scholarship to the leading black college of the south.  He has the white men to thank for that opporotunity; his eyes "filled with tears" of grattitude and he seems to forgive the harsh treatment he received before and even during the speech.  More examples of patrimony appear as the narrator describes an incident that occurred as he approached his last year of  college.  Being given the honourable responsibility of driving one of the colleges white trustees around campus, he makes a turn down a backroad into the old slave quarters.  The trustee, Mr. Norton, asks him to stop at an ancient slave house where a farmer named Trueblood lives.  Mr. Norton, after learning the incestual story of Trueblood's unfortunate accident, is truly horrified.  Nevertheless, he takes out his wallet and gives the man a hundred dollar bill.  Norton is not the first to show such consideration to the farmer.  According to Trueblood, the whites of the town started treating him well, giving money to him: "They gimmee more help than they ever give any other colored man" he says, though he does not understand why.  The role of whites as patronizing figures is more firmly established by the words of the vet as he and the narrator sit on the bus, one headed for Washington, the other to New York.  "the white folks, authority, fate, circumstances".  While the narrator does not appear to take him seriously, the vet is in ways correct.  The narrator's future course had been set by the authority figures who gave him the scholarship, and who built the school.
