Major Themes InBattle Royal, By Ralph Ellison

In the short stories “The Lesson,” by Bambara and “Battle Royal,” by Ralph Ellison, the authors use the idea of race determining the social structure in America where blacks are the socially inferior. In the short story “The Lesson,” by Bambara through fictional characters makes a serious social commentary. In the short story “Battle Royal,” by Ralph Ellison shows weakness and disorder of black identity in the early 1900s through the subjection of his young black narrator to a series of monstrous treatments by white man.

Ralph Ellison’s short story, Battle Royal, is mainly an account of the African American struggle for equality and identity. The narrator of the story is an above average youth of the African American community [Goldstein-Shirlet, 1999]. He is given an opportunity to give a speech to some of the more prestigious white individuals. His expectations of being received in a positive and normal environment are drastically dashed when he is faced with the severity of the process he must deal with in order to accomplish his task.

One of “Battle Royal’s” main purposes was to provide an insight into the pre-Civil Rights era (which was the current time for Ellison) and exemplify the human atrocities that occurred. The short story shows the ways in which the white

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

Q1. As the narrator leaves the Deep South and finds himself of the middle of the “Battle Royal” Ellison shows the reader the narrator’s inability to see the full situation. A1. This is significant in Invisible Man because the narrator is trying throughout the whole novel to realize who he is and what he is supposed to do. If the narrator is unable to see the whole situation, one cannot achieve self- realization.

The excerpt “Battle Royal” from the novel Invisible Man connects to many other poems’ mood and tone from its era. Zora Neale Hurston’s short story How It Feels to Be Colored Me shows relation to “Battle Royal” by its overall tone. In the stories the main characters are both put into uncomfortable positions dealing with racism. Both Zora and the narrator of “Battle Royal” are determined to remain themselves to deal situation at hand. “I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background… But through it I remain myself” (How It Feels to Be Colored Me paragraph 7). The same tone is held in “Battle Royal”, “I will stand on the mg to deliver my speech…I tremble with excitement, forgetting my pain” (Invisible Man). Along the same

Institutionalized racism remains as one of the dominate ways in which one race stays in control over other races, in “Battle Royal” by Ralph Ellison its illustrated socially, also economically in African Americans but it’s displayed through the men. In other words, the history of battling to survive and overcome institutionalized racism is the same as the battle of slavery the protagonist and is family are giving the tools to survive before the patriarch of the family dies. These two issues of social and economic are just two ways in which the elite whites kept African Americans in servitude and bondage of the mind, having them to think they couldn’t achieve greatness in life except for what was allowed by the dominate race. The narration within “Battle Royal” depicts a struggle that is passed down from one generation to the next until an elder in the family leaves a plan of survival.

In “Battle Royal,” the narrator is living during the Reconstruction Era where he is fighting for equality for the African American race. During this time period, the blacks were given advice to work hard to become equal by proving their loyalty. The narrator has been invited to a battle royal to recite the speech he said for his graduation speech as the valedictorian, which is about social responsibility. The narrator believes he knows how to help the African American race gain equality, but he is follows the advice of Booker T. Washington. He finds out through his experience at the Battle Royal that his grandfather was right and needs to fight for his rights.

The story I have chosen to write my literary analysis on is Battle Royale", a short story by Ralph Ellison, written in 1952. This short story is the opening of a larger novel written by Ellison it is a story about a young black man, who has recently graduated high school. During the course of this story the boy’s grandfather dies and leaves the young man with some last words that he did not initially understand but close to the end of the story the words meaning become clearer to him. He lives in the south and is invited to give a speech at a gathering of the towns leading white citizens. Then the young man is made to take place in a battle royale with nine other young black men. Where they are treated very poorly and forced to endure terrible hardships. After taking part in the battle the young man gives a speech in front of a predominantly white crowd where he slips and says something that disturbs the crowd, the young man quickly corrects himself and then is praised by the people as a good black young man. The argument that I will be trying to address here is did the young man make the correct decision by accepting the white peoples praise and not speaking out against the injustice he had just been forced to endure. The reaction of the main character in this story depicts how not speaking up against injustice or racism is sometimes the best course of action.

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.

How would you feel if you were trying to succeed in life but there was a greater force holding you back? Ralph Ellison uses setting, irony, and symbolism in “Battle Royal” to further explain how African Americans were treated in regards to social equality. In the Deep South racism was very common and unfortunately it lead to many cruel things. Many people were mistreated and disrespected for no reason other than their skin color. The white man wanted to keep the African Americans separated from them despite the laws passed. Many African Americans were treated like slaves even though they clearly were not slaves anymore. Symbols used in the story give us clues to things like the American dream. The American dream is what every American is trying to achieve whether it is becoming rich or just being truly free from racism. The irony portrayed shows just how African Americans were treated and how it must have felt to just live everyday life. The setting is

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

Just let me be great! I am trying to be the best that I can be and it seems that it is never enough. In “Battle Royal” The main character experiences some things that will change his view of a black man forever. With the last words of his grandfather lingering in the back of his mind, he is confused and trying to find himself. He focuses on education and thinks this will be his way out but he has a huge reality check on the night he goes to deliver his speech. This Intelligent, respectful, and handsome young man is here to deliver his speech but quickly realizes it is not what he thought, while being beaten to a pulp he still focuses on his speech, and no matter what he does, he is still a nigga.

W.E.B Du Bois once stated “to be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships” (qtd. in Rodgers 1). The Native American culture is often overlooked by many people in the United States today. What many people do not realize is that about twenty-five percent of Native Americans are living in poverty (Rodgers 1). A majority of the poverty among Native Americans is due to the United States breaking treaties that promised funds for their tribes. When non-Native Americans first began migrating to North America, the Indians were slowly having their land stripped away from them, and being pushed to live on small, poorly kept reservations. As well as taking

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest" (Wiesel). "Battle Royal," a short story by Ralph Ellison, marks the resolution of the Civil War and slavery in the United States. The narrator's grandfather, who was freed from slavery 85 years earlier, had just died. The narrator was chosen to give a speech in an ensemble of rich whites. In the beginning, it seems as though he's hesitant on reciting his speech, but he is blindfolded with multiple others and put into a boxing ring where all of them fight. Not to mention, he was beaten badly.