The Hidden Meaning of Liberty Paints
Invisible Man, written by Ralph Ellison, and published in 1952, follows an unnamed narrator through his life, beginning at college in the deep south, then moving to New York City. The narrator comes to find that New York carries many of the same racist qualities he thought he left behind in the south. The narrator’s life is written by Ellison in such a way that because of his sense of invisibility, feels surreal to the reader. One of the first jobs he obtains is with a company called Liberty Paints, famous for their “optic white” paint. While at first glance “Liberty Paints” may appear to be a seemingly normal title for a paint company, it carries a lot of symbolism throughout the chapter.
The name of the company, “Liberty Paints” and their slogan “Keep America Pure with Liberty Paints” allows for much interpretation. Not only does the name itself push the rhetoric that whiteness and liberty go hand in hand and therefore insinuating that black individuals will never experience the same type of freedoms as white people. The company prides itself on how they produce the best white paint around and how a lot of it goes to paint government buildings and monuments. This connection depicts how closely tied American government and white supremacist ideals are in society. Working at Liberty Paints the narrator is not free or in any means experiencing “liberty”, in fact, he is mistreated by Mr. Kimbro, his boss, and reprimanded for not creating paint that was white and perfect enough.
The process that this paint requires is for the workers to apply drops of black paint that disappear into the white paint and somehow help balance the mixture. This is symbolism for whitewashing, showing that regardless of the importance of the black dots, they become lost and diluted by the powerful white paint. Using the paint as his metaphor, Ellison portrays how black individuals’ hard work and accomplishments are often squandered by white people. At one point, the narrator’s boss, Mr. Kimbro becomes upset that he has put the wrong mixture into the paint. After seeing that, “The paint was not as white and glossy as before; it had a gray tinge (Ellison 203)”, Mr. Kimbro begins aggressively yelling at the narrator. This interaction and the entire company of Liberty Paints is a representation of America’s obsession with whiteness and how hard they work to keep that whiteness from being the only thing that is visible to the naked eye.
The liberty paints chapter definitely interested me too and it's impossible to ignore the apparent symbolism of the paint factory and everything that goes on there. You did an excellent job of thoroughly laying out all of the ways that the factory seems to be ingrained with racist imagery, and you make a strong point about the connections. Great job!
ReplyDeleteAlso keep in mind the related idea of "whitewashing," which is literally the older term for painting something white, but which has taken on the meaning of altering or shaping history to reflect a positive view of white people, or to eliminate evidence of conflict and oppression. "Optic White" (which is white that affects the *eyes* or perception somehow) is used to whitewash national monuments (pretty easy to interpret that one), and the narrator wonders whether it's the same white they use to whitewash the buildings at the college (which draws a connection between national-level "whitewashing" of history and the role of education in the narrator's development).
ReplyDeleteVery true. The symbolism is as clear as day to the reader, but not completely obvious to the narrator. Even though the racism is not subtle at all, the narrator seems to be oblivious (willingly?). Ultimately, the narrator's accident may have opened his eyes to everything, resulting in his change in identity. Good blog
ReplyDeleteThe symbolism is so blatantly splattered throughout the setting at Liberty paints and you did an amazing job of bringing it all together to make a strong point about America's obsession with white-ness and the concept of 'whitewashing'. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteThis is a really good explanation of a bunch of the symbolism Ellison used in these scenes. The black drops put into the white paint kind of mirror the metaphor the author uses with Brockway - that the work of black people is essential for the factory to function yet still goes unnoticed and is often hidden - in this case literally underground.
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