In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, the narrator (literally) stumbles upon what he first describes as “a lot of junk waiting to be hauled away” on a sidewalk. However, he soon realizes that this pile is not junk – it is a pile of a dispossessed couple’s possessions that only keeps growing as the cops haul more “junk” out of their apartment. As the scene unfolds and the narrator goes through the couple’s possessions, it is clear that the Invisible Man is directly able to take things outside of the groove of history and get them in, even though it is also evident that he does not necessarily want to, based on his findings and the impassioned speech he gives to the crowd watching the eviction.
It can be seen that there was a reason why it was so easy for the Invisible Man to mistake the couple’s possessions as trash. He describes what he sees at surface level as very old, random, and perhaps even useless, items: a beaten up chest of drawers, old musical instruments, and tattered signs and posters ripped from magazines that had been hung up on the walls. From just these items, it is nearly impossible for the Invisible Man to relate this eviction to history. However, as the Invisible Man goes deeper into the items, he finds a photo of the couple from when they were young, and describes their facial expressions as people who “expected little, and this with a grim, disillusioned pride.” Here, the reader can start to feel the Invisible Man connecting the dots to a key piece of history that this novel is themed around: racial discrimination. Throughout the novel, the Invisible Man is plagued with experiences with racism, but this photo is an actual depiction of what it feels like to be black in America. Even though this picture was taken decades ago, the narrator seems to become aware that this feeling of “expecting little” has not changed for black people in each generation. Thus, there seems to be a direct correlation for black people in America when it comes to “expecting little;” they expect little because what they actually own does not accumulate to much, which can be seen through what the Provos actually own. What they expect is, unfortunately, their realities. And, perhaps, the Invisible Man feels as if the younger version of the Provos in the photograph is like looking into a mirror.
This feeling is confirmed and the Invisible Man is fully able to take things “outside of the groove of history” and get them in when he finds a seemingly useless piece of old, yellow paper on the ground – Primus Provo’s freedom papers. It is clear now, that at least one of the people being evicted had been a slave, which directly ties in not just racism, but also slavery, into the narrator’s revelations. The Invisible Man states, “My hands were trembling… It has been longer than that, further removed in time, I told myself, and yet I knew that it hadn’t been.” This shows the Invisible Man’s internal struggle when it comes to accepting the fact that he is still facing the direct effects of racism, but is now able to contextualize it into a much more “historical” way; and yet, despite the fact that slavery is “history,” he knows that, in reality, this piece in time has never truly ended. The narrator knows that he, himself, is just a continuation of this story. It should also be noted that something so significant – the freedom of a black man – is something that, physically, looks so small and insignificant. The black man’s freedom is represented in this story as a tattered, old, yellow piece of paper that was thrown onto the ground by the white man. It is something that could have been mistaken for garbage.
He then details this story to the audience that has gathered to watch this eviction. “‘Dispossessed’! ‘Dispossessed,’ eighty-seven years and dispossessed of what? They ain’t got nothing, they never had nothing. So who was dispossessed?” The Invisible Man is now outwardly taking things “outside of the groove of history” and getting them in, even though he does not mention the fact that Mr. Provos had once been a slave. This can be seen by the fact that the narrator plays on the fact that the Provos have had nothing then, and clearly, nothing now. He shows the audience through this line that although the Provos’ status has changed from “slaves” to “free” Americans, one crucial aspect has remained the same: the white man is still in control of the black “free” man, as the white cops physically evict the couple.
Finally, it is also interesting to note that both the audience and the narrator refer to each cop as “the white man” and everyone else in this scene as “the black man.” Clearly, the presence of the cops has a deeper meaning than government officials simply executing the law because they were ordered to evict the Provos. This eviction is an allusion to slavery in itself – the white man will always be in full control of the black man’s life, regardless of how many years have passed since a black man’s “freedom” was obtained. A black man’s freedom clearly is still not enough for him to stop a white man from stripping away everything the black man owns.
