Proust and anti-Proust in Invisible Man

Unnamed narrator in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man takes a job in a paint company - as noted in yesterday's post, the symbolism is effective and funny if heavy-handed, as his job initially is adding a black pigment that disappears w/in the white paint but makes the paint stronger - this for a government contract in fact - but after he does poorly on his first assignment they assign him as an assistant to the wizened old man in the boiler room Narrator works for one of the few black employees, a mean guy who's worked his way up and knows more about the paint process than anyone else; he's indispensable. Heading back to locker room to get his lunch, narrator wanders into a union meeting, where everyone suspects he may be a "fink" until he proves otherwise. Back to boiler room, his supervisor freaks because he thinks narrator may be a union spy - boiler guy plays up to management in every way, but has gained little for it. As they argue, the pressure in the tanks builds, leading to a vast explosion - another bit of symbolism here. Narrator awakes in a hospital - turns out to be a company hospital, more like an infirmary, where the doctors are performing some kind of experimental treatment, perhaps a form of lobotomy. They discharge him on disability - has he changed? The corporate world has made him into a machine, a walking zombie. He goes back to Harlem, gets new accommodations (after lashing out at someone he mistakes for the college president who'd betrayed him); then we get to one of the most beautiful sections, winter in Harlem - a completely new experience for the narrator. He walks through the snow; sees a family being evicted and speaks to the crowd, urging them not to attack the laborers carrying out the eviction but to be thoughtful and to work in unision - he's pretty much ignored; very moving description of the objects in the snow. Walking on, he comes upon a yam salesman - buys one for a dime - this is the Proustian moment in IM, as narrator (unnamed, but clearly autobiographical, like Proust's narrator) is transported back to his childhood by the taste and aroma - we seen nothing of his early childhood and know little about his family to this point - IM has been anti-Proustian in that sense - but the taste of the yam leads to his pun - I am what I yam - which suggests that he cannot get away from his childhood, from his family, from his race, no matter how he tries.