Comparing My Papa's Waltz And Battle Royal By Ralph Ellison

They say never judge a book by its cover but I have found myself to do just that. My experience with literature has been roughly the same all throughout my life, if I see a good book then I’ll read it. But if it is something boring or I am being forced to read it then I will not read it. For instance, if someone handed me a Harry Potter book there would be no problem. However, hand me a textbook then it is a completely different story. All throughout grade school it was the same especially when it came to stories like “Romeo and Juliet” and “Hamlet”. This can be tied to an earlier article we read about college kids avoiding literature, because they are forced to care about stories that we are told are so great. But in reality I feel as if I will always have this mind set about literature, because nothing I have read has changed my mind.

I had to choose two different stories with the intention of having explain how I felt reading them and if my view of literature changed during the reading.

The two stories that I choose to read were “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke and “Battle Royal” by Ralph Ellison a short excerpt from a novel titled “The Invisible Man”. I chose these two because they were the two that stuck out the most to me. From “My Papas Waltz” countless of ways to interpret it, to “The Invisible Man’s” coverage over a very heated topic such as race. And of course me being a black male made the latter stand out even more. So I think it is just right that I start off with that

one.
Battle Royal is a story about a very intelligent African American kid who is trying to decipher his grandfather’s last words on his deathbed. Here is a small sample of what the Grandfather said “Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight. 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.” (Ellison/Battle Royal 1)
This story just told me what I already knew about the time that African Americans did not get an ounce of respect back during segregation. In the story the kid gives a speech at his Graduation and it is apparently so good he gets invited to present it for the white elite of the town. But soon finds out that they have a whole different agenda. After he gets there he is forced to fight while blindfolded and still the only thing he can think about is how he is going to give the speech. It hurts to read a passage like this because throughout the whole story the kid is excited to just have the opportunity to even present the speech and when the time came the people in the room do not even pay him any attention until he got frustrated and said “Racial Equality”. That part of the story was an element that really stuck out to me the most since they cared so little about the speech until he said something they did not approve of. I really enjoying reading stories like this because it helps me get a better understanding of how it actually was during those times of segregation. Even though I do not like to reading this is one of those topics that I find interesting too read. Because I get the opportunity to read first-hand accounts of how segregation affected my ancestors.
The next passage is not really a story but a poem that has many levels of understanding and that is what made me pick it. The title is “My Papas Waltz” by Theodore Roethke this poem from my understanding is about a drunken abusive father that is beating his kid with a belt. There is also a different way of interpreting this poem where an over joyed drunken father is dancing with his son in the kitchen bumping into objects and breaking them. That is why I picked this poem because the day we were assigned to read this for class it caused this massive debate. A view point that I could not see beforehand because of the way I interpreted the poem. It was not until I had other classmate’s point of view did I see how it could be seen in a different angle. There are a view examples where it happens for instance, “The hand that held my wrist   
Was battered on one knuckle” this to me shows that he clearly has been hitting him with the same fist over and over again but could also mean that the father works with his hands a lot. Then this line “At every step you missed, my right ear scraped a buckle” to me says that he was so drunk while he was whooping the boy he missed some steps and accidentally hit him with the buckle of the belt. However, some of my classmates saw it as if the father was so drunk he could barely dance and since the kid was probably around the father’s waist area, caused him to keep pushing his belt buckle on to the kid’s ear. From the listed examples above you can see what I mean about having different perspectives when reading the poem. With a passage like this you could read it five times and still find something different on the sixth. Which is why I chose this as my second passage because, it requires you to think more than just your average passage.
Now after reading both of those stories I can still say that My stance on literature hasn't changed. I just can't see me self-wanting to ever read anything that does not interest me. I tried to get a new understanding of literature from this paper but it really just made me realize why I am like that in the first place. Because if I feel like I will not like it I won't read it. I know by doing so I might miss out on a good piece literature here and there but that is a risk I am willing to take.