Battle Royal
In Ralph Ellison's "Battle Royal" the narrator states that "all my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was" (442). The narrator admits that he accepted their answers even though he knew they were not logical -- and this compulsion to bow down to or to submit to an external force in a setting that is wholly antagonistic to him is the major theme that runs through the story. Indeed, the Battle Royal in which the young black man is humiliated by being forced to box in a ring is a setting that perfectly represents his internal and external struggles. He is obliges to pleasure the white elites and is compelled to deliver a speech in which he states that the role of the black is to submit and be deferential to whites -- a speech for which he is awarded "entry" into their society -- a setting he is never really supposed to be at home in. This paper will show how Ellison's short story is, as Janice Trekker notes, a representation of the "war" (169) that blacks must face both internally and externally in the setting of white society, and how this setting controls the internal and external life of the young man.
Because of his life being set in the world of an elite white society, the internal war that is waged in the narrator is one of intellectual growth -- a battle between truth and falsehood. It is also a war for identity. The narrator states that he is "looking" for something -- though he does not know what (Ellison 442). This sense of looking, however, is reminiscent of the journey motif that runs through much of literature -- a motif used to convey or express a sense of exploration, of a character who is searching for knowledge. The knowledge that the narrator of "Battle Royal" is seeking is as of yet unknown, but he is restless and is not content to sit in ignorance. Thus, he asks for the opinion of others. He is polite and accommodating -- but sometimes this accommodation comes at the expense of his own sense of self, self-worth, and reason. The answers he receives from others on how to think and what to do are irreconcilable and contradictory. They do not actually provide solutions to the problems...
Ralph Ellison is as celebrated today as one of America's finest authors as he was fifty years ago. This is quite a legacy for a man who only wrote one novel during his lifetime. "If I'm going to be remembered as a novelist, I'd better produce a few more books," Ellison once acknowledged to an interviewer (Bark 1C). There is little doubt that this author will ever be forgotten. Half
I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy's country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion's mouth. I want you to overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree 'em to death and destruction, let 'em swoller you till they
Ralph Ellison's " Battle Royal," and Flannery O'Connor's " Revelation." Specifically, it will look at the prejudices of some of the characters in both stories. One protagonist faces blind, hateful prejudice in "Battle Royal," and the other perpetrates it in "Revelation." Prejudice is ugly, and each story presents it as horribly as possible, to get that message across to the reader. PREJUDICE IN TWO SHORT STORIES Battle Royal" by Ralph Ellison is
Ralph Ellison was the grandson of slaves. He was born in Oklahoma in 1914, where he was also raised (Tulsa). He developed a love for jazz music at a very young age, and Ellison maintained a circle of friends that included many jazz musicians. He studied two instruments - the coronet, and the trumpet, with intentions of becoming a "jazz man" himself. He studied music at the prominent black
Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison. Dividing people by race. Five quoted passages. Five outside sources. Annotated Bibliography Invisible Man" Invisibility. Who has not felt invisible at one time or another in their lives? However, for many groups within society, invisibility is not a phrase, it is a day-to-day reality. Its roots are planted deep in prejudices, stereotyping, and basic intolerance and ignorance of cultural diversity. That American society was and is founded on
According to his benefactor his case, represents, my dear Mr. Emerson, one of the rare delicate instances in which one for whom we held great expectations has gone grievously astray, and who in his fall threatens to upset certain delicate relationships between certain interested individuals and the school. Thus, while the bearer is no longer a member of our scholastic family, it is highly important that his severance with
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