After our class's third day of seminar with Invisible Man, I feel more or less conflicted with this book. The more I understand the metaphors and the allusions, the less I understand of the book itself. It's as if Ellison wants to fit all of the world's problems, be they historic (segregation and oppression), concerning identity, freedom, politics, gender, race…the list goes on and on. As we pondered all of these (and more) within the Liberty Paints chapter, the topic of black versus white came up, and this pervaded most of the discussion. The use of black and white doesn't just exclude itself to color or race--it also alludes to truth and lie, light and dark, yin and yang. It's genius, and it's frustrating, to make sense of it all; that leads me to believe that Ellison is able to write such an elegant novel not because he is necessarily "smarter" than the average guy, but that his brain capacity has so much more room and power to make these connections clearly. I can't even begin to wrap my head around the concept of "black and white," and here Ellison is, describing everything wrong with the world mainly using the colors black and white.
Who would've thought that the concept of white paint, for example, connotes a 'fake truth?' My mind went completely over this simple fact in itself, and now every time I think about it my mind is blown at the level of symbolism within this chapter itself. The paint made at Liberty Paints (Liberty…another motif here) can only be brightened by adding a deep black something-or-other to the paint, which at first tints the paint an ugly dark color before transforming into luminescent white that Liberty Paints is famous for "If it's not white, it's not right." However, my horrible experience with paint a couple of years ago made me realize that the claim Ellison is making about the color white, especially in this pretense, is not positive.
A couple of years ago, I wanted to repaint my room green. It was lavender before, but it matched the color of the bathroom, and because of that every time I walk in to my bedroom I have the sudden urge to go to the bathroom and take a shower. This is NOT good if you plan on sleeping and doing homework in your bedroom. So, being the independent and rebellious soul that I was, I bought the paint myself and got to work painting it by myself, against my mom's qualms about messiness and my inability to paint cleanly. I will say that the one job I did well was apply the painters' tape on the crown moulding; however, not even 10 minutes into the painting adventure, I tripped and fell on the bucket of paint. Don't panic; the floor was fine since I had covered it over with plastic. However, my whole left side was covered in disgustingly pale green tinged paint that simply wouldn't wash off after a quick rinse. I will never forget the next week afterwards, the week of the "green arm." It became a testament to my klutziness, a battle scar and an annoyingly green scab that I can't peel off. The image of the paint is still ingrained in my mind; like cracked skin, it hardens and then slowly (but surely) flakes off, one by one.
Yes, it is a slight tangent to the main point. But when we discussed the paint itself my mind immediately went to this memory, an ugly outer skin to my skin, but turns out smooth on the right surface (a plastered wall). It makes me think that when the narrator is sent to Liberty Paints, it's almost like a test; will he react well to the white paint? Will he conform, or will the paint crack on him? Maybe Emerson Jr. was also a secret Brotherhood agent who sent the narrator out there to see if he's got the goods to be a Brotherhood member?
The narrator comes to the inevitable end of regurgitation (ascension?) out of the underground valve room where Lucius Brockway resides. Once the narrator learns what really goes into the paint, what its purpose really is, the factory seems to spit him back out into the wild, as if he's a bad virus that can contaminate the paint. And maybe he is; the narrator is the only one to notice a slight gray tinge to the defected paint, even after inspection by Mr. Kimbro. The narrator doesn't see in black and white; he sees in gray. He acknowledges the necessity of truth and deceit in life, but lives in a world where truth loves to be painted onto things to give the facade of innocence while the insides are in black turmoil. In the narrator's head, white IS black, not a decision of white OR black. Is one scenario better than the other? Well, not necessarily. Everyone knows that the world doesn't run in black and white (in all senses of the two colors). We really do live in a bunch of gray. But it's also true that we crave truth and seek for it everywhere; we demand it, and it's given to us by the higher power. But how do we know that the nuggets of truth given out to us are truly white? What if it's painted over?
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