Battle Royal, by Ralph Ellison Essay

     If I had to pick one out of the many stories that we have read and say

A short analysis of the major theme found in Ellison’s Battle Royal, supported by a literary criticism dealing with the tone and style of the story.

The theme of “Battle Royal” by Ralph Ellison is “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.” (Ralph Ellison) and through plot and setting we can see how it connects to the story. The grandfather's words to the narrator telling him to play it safe and follow all of the blacks rules to survive and during his speech where none of them were paying attention to him until he stepped out of line in their eyes, and told him to know his place. The setting shows this because the events in the story take place in a building a where a smoker is being held, an event for mainly whites who want to watch blacks fight. Even though the narrator is superior to the other blacks attending he is still not given any special treatment,

The author of the story Battle Royal, Ralph Ellison was born on March 1, 1914 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, studied music before moving to New York City and working as a writer. He published his bestselling, acclaimed first novel Invisible Man in 1952; it would be seen as a seminal work on marginalization from an African-American protagonist's perspective. Ellison's unfinished novel Juneteenth was published posthumously in 1999 (biography.com).

The point of view in Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal” comes strictly from his trials and tribulations that he has overcome as a young black writer that began before the nineteen Fifties. Ralph Ellison was a black writer who was born on March 1, 1914 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma only seven years after it had actually became a state. After completing the lengthy research of this man and his works I found that Ellison once had considered becoming a classical music composer after getting the idea from a nineteenth century opera composer named Richard Wagner. The reading of “Battle Royal" from “Literature An Introduction to reading and writing” by Edgar V. Roberts and Robert Zweig Tenth Edition was actually the first chapter of Ellison’s novel

It is natural in all humans to try to impress the people that they revere, and often times, this admiration can be blinding. Despite his grandfather’s dying words being advice to wage war on the whites, the narrator of James Ellison’s “Battle Royal” experiences this craving for approval from the esteemed whites of his town. All of the narrator’s troubles begin with the preconceived notion that the whites are superior to the blacks. The short story, told in hindsight, displays the narrators quest to impress the whites with his commencement speech, and the hurdles he has to jump through for their approval. Through his usage of voice, the author shows how blacks made such an effort to impress the whites, whom they thought were superior, that they neglected to stand up to the injustices that they were faced with.

Ellison once said, “Our social mobility was strictly, and violently, limited” (German 2). The black society is portrayed in a special way in “Battle Royal.” The boxing ring of the Battle symbolizes the confinement of blacks in their society (German 2). The whites are always superior, and the blacks are constantly held back and left fighting. “The story’s title, ‘Battle Royal,’ suggests that the incidents described in the narrative are just one battle in the ongoing racial war” (Brent 2). There is constant controversy between whites and blacks, so far as it is described as a war. In the grandfather’s speech, he describes it as a war, and he states that he wants the narrator to “keep up the good fight.” He then explains how the narrator should do so; he orders him “Live with your head in the lion’s

It's about conformity and uprising. "Battle Royal" is about wanting to please the very people who look at you as an inferior race. In this story, the narrator is moved from idealism to realism. He is awakened to a new world in which he finally sees the prejudice that exists and that is directed toward him.

Battle Royal is a short story that metaphorically address many such issues such as racial discrimination. The Author, Ralph Ellison, uses symbolism such as blindness and the concept of initiation to compare the world to a real life battlefield. Ellison intended to emphasize, both passive and aggressive elements of battle is necessary to achieve the American Dream.

Battle Royal, a short story written by Ralph Ellison, is about a young black man who delivers an astounding speech about the trials that young people faced, and in order to continue telling the speech that would change other peoples lives, he has to go through an amazing ordeal of pain and trial.

Many Southern writers of different races expressed views of Southern History through literature with gender. The short story “Battle Royal’ by Ralph Ellison entails about a mature narrator recalls the instruction that his dying grandfather offers and his remembrance of a painful treachery that corroborates the grandfather’s advice. The narrator’s question of individuality is not constrained to the simple twenty years of his own life, but to the lives of his grandparents, who were born as slaves and freed eighty-five years before. The Grandfather trusted that they were separate but equal and that they had accomplished equality with whites in spite of segregation. On his deathbed, the narrator’s grandfather offers him odd and unsettling guidance. He communicates to the narrator that he has considered himself a conspirator his entire life. The narrator recollects delivering the class speech at his high school graduation. The speech advocates humility and obedience as key to the advancement of black Americans. It proves such a success that the town orchestrate to have him deliver it at a meeting of the community’s leading white citizens. The narrator comes to the gathering, but was given orders to take part in the “battle royal” the evening’s amusement. The fight took place in a room with a boxing ring. After the fight, coins were tossed on a rug to be collected by the fighters. After all of this, the narrator

The native Africans' heritage and way of life were forever altered by the white slave drivers who took them into captivity in the 18th century. Along with their freedom, slaves were also robbed of their culture and consequently their identities. They became property instead of people, leaving them at the hands of merciless slave owners. Their quest to reclaim their stolen identities was a long and difficult struggle, especially in the years following the Civil War and the subsequent release of their people from bondage. In Ralph Ellison's 1948 short story "Battle Royal," he uses the point of view of a young black man living in the south to convey the theme of racial identity crisis that faced African Americans in the United States

Implying that the battle, resonates to that of the racial conflict and issues of social standing; which help to solidify the meaning of Ellison’s Marxist composition. To complicate the point, the title of the book is “Battle Royal”, alluding to the great conflict that the narrator was lured into; while juxtaposing the aliments of the Black community endless struggle towards finding recognition and equity in society. Therefore; asserting the claim that the battle, in the passage contextualize to the most core message of the novel proving the conflicting aspect shown by the story and how these sentiments were just specific, to the narrator but, to millions of African-Americans around the country; more in depth, this epic battle aligns with his (the narrator) grandfather’s message foreshadowed earlier in the passage; proclaiming the need for such hostilities, to foster the fight for social recognition of equality to that of the “fairer race” (Ellison pg. 294). The conflict also provokes the pursuit for freedom of future black generation towards recognition and other factors of social equity, which adds to the entity of the story. this addition exhibited when the narrator overcomes his battles later in the book when he’s in his dark apartment and he realizes he’s been blind in the entirety of his life, he

Ralph Ellison’s short story “Battle Royal,” is set in the deep south during the late 1940’s era. Racial tension in the south has always been exorbitantly high. In the 1940’s keeping segregation is still a priority for half the population in the southern states, slavery may be abolished but the physical act of welcoming African-Americans as “Americans” is far from the minds of many Americans. Ellison’s short story accentuates this idea of racial tension and social standards, between the elites of the town and the very intelligent former high school graduate. The story touches on a sensitive topic that America has yet to realize, and it is that people that are considered to be minorities can be subjected to be oppressed, based on their

“Battle Royal” is a short story written by Ralph Ellison. It’s about the narrator who is a young black man struggling to find his place in life. He isn’t sure about himself and can’t seem to figure out answers to some internal questions. He looks for answers in others and without disputing, he takes on and exhibits behaviors based on how others perceive him. Although being an educated young man who attends high school, he is ashamed of his grandparents past because they were slaves. When his grandfather dies, he is left with an additional battle due to his grandfather’s last dying words of treachery to his people. When he graduates high school, he gives a speech so magnificent that he is invited to speak for important people in his community which are all white. He is excited about his speech but once at the location, he sees that fellow classmates who aren’t fond of him are also in attendance and knows that receiving the chance to give his speech will be a difficult task. The young black males invited will be participating in a battle which is entertainment for the important white males in his town. The winner of that battle will receive money but also speak to the socialites of the town. The battle consists of the young black men, blindly, fighting each other for the entertainment of the socialites until only two men are left standing. The narrator eventually can give his speech but not without making an error and letting out the words “social-equality” which caught the