Allegory in the Liberty Paints Saga

In Chapter 11 of Ellison's Invisible Man the narrator goes to work at a paint factory called Liberty Paints. This factory is enormous and seems to function as its own city. Many of the qualities that it possesses are parallel to those possessed by America. The way that it is run, the positions held by African Americans, even the name seem to have symbolism relating Liberty Paints to the American system. In this way, Liberty Paints seems to serve as an allegory for the country of America.

The way that the narrator experiences the chain of command in Liberty paints seems parallel to the way that he experiences hierarchies in the rest of his life. The narrator is explicitly told by Kimbro that he "just has to do what [he's] told and don't try to think about it". This is very similar to the way he was treated by Bledsoe, Norton and the white southerners. They just give him orders and he is expected to follow them without thought. However, just like in the rest of his life, when he follows his boss's instructions without thinking, he angers Kimbro. He accidentally puts the wrong solution in the paint because he wasn't told what solution to put in the paint and he was told not to think about it, so he just grabbed the first solution he saw. Kimbro then acts like he should have known better even though he was told not to think. The narrator is punished even though he was following the boss's directions and it was not his fault. This situation is similar to when Bledsoe told the narrator to give Norton a tour of the college. He is supposed to follow Norton's orders explicitly but it somehow ends up being his fault (in Bledsoe's eyes) when he takes Norton to a place that reflects poorly on the university. The unfairness in his treatment at Liberty Paints is related to the unfairness in his treatment in America. In this way, Liberty Paints serves as a scaled down version of America as a whole. 

Both Liberty Paints and the America that it represents hold similar characters in Bledsoe and Brockway. Both bledsoe and Brockway are self-made, "pull yourself up by your bootstraps", black men in power. However, both of them have somewhat exaggerated impacts and exaggerated power. Bledsoe is still an important man, but his power is limited by white patrons of the university, and his impact on black people in America is very limited. The college does little to help anyone who isn't one of the small number of people who go there (even the community directly outside of the college is largely not impacted), and arguably doesn't even help the people who do go there. Similarly, Brockwell still controls his boiler room, but outside of that he has little power, even though he claims to be the sole reason the company's paint is so good (which probably isn't totally accurate). Brockway's connection to Bledsoe serves as another link from Liberty Paints to America.

Liberty Paints's name is also significant. Similar to America, it boasts freedom, however when we are shown its inner workings the truth becomes clear. There seem to only be a very small number of people in the factory with any power, and almost all of them are white. If that weren't enough, the factory seemingly only produces white paint(or at the very least produces it almost exclusively), in a similar way that the racist American public (especially during the 1920s) promotes white people much more than anyone else.

Obviously this metaphor falls apart at some point, but this is just a thought. I think Mr. Mitchell said something about this in class and I just wanted to explore it, what do you guys think?