Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal” hints at a number of themes and motifs of the complete work, Invisible Man, of which it is a chapter and develops a few of these themes within the chapter. Most obviously are the themes of identity, specifically the search for identity, and a theme of invisibility both as a construct of an oppressive society and as a survival technique in an oppressive society. A third potential theme of the work as a whole seems to be of pride, the kind of price, which “goes before a fall.” As well, the chapter introduces what may be a motif of the whole, but certainly serves as a symbol within the chapter, blindness, or obscured sight. In “Battle Royal,” blindness is symbolic of naiveté, innocence, yet it may serve as a motif …show more content…
of the whole in regards to an inability to see what is actually there, or the human tendency to see what one wants to be there. In the first paragraph of this excerpt, author Ralph Ellison’s exposition alerts the reader to the first, and most likely, the major theme of the chapter, and the novel, that of identity, specifically the search for identity. Without hesitation the narrator reveals that, his search has been a long and painful journey of self-realization, especially as he “was looking for myself (his self) and asking everyone except myself (himself).” As the chapter progresses we see evidence of this, the narrator defines himself with the perceptions or judgements of others, including his grandfather, the other boys, and the “town’s leading white citizens.” Haunted by his grandfather’s dying words, “his curse,” the narrator lives his life comparing his triumphs and success to his “example of desirable conduct,” his grandfather’s message of “yes-sing” them “till they vomit or bust open.” The narrator’s acquiescence is an adopted character trait, believed to comply with his grandfather’s dying directive. The narrator admits, “It was as though I was carrying out his advice in spite of myself,” and that “to make it worse, everyone loved me for it,” indicating that this was not his nature; the behavior that received the adoration was ‘in spite of himself,” contradictory to what he was finding within himself. Unable to find his identity in a life led in compliance with his grandfather’s directive, the narrator looks to define himself by comparing himself with the other boys.
He finds himself superior, an intellectual, as opposed to their “toughness.” Being crowded together in the service elevator is distasteful, and not necessarily from claustrophobia, but perhaps from a disdain for being so closely packed in with them. The boys’ reaction to him, their obvious disdain and distrust of him, and their conspiracy against him, seems to be a source of satisfaction for him, as if their acceptance would indicate a blotch on his character, an unlikely association; after all, he considered himself a “potential Booker T. Washington,” another contradiction to his grandfather’s …show more content…
curse. Evidently, the opinion of the “big shots” of the town is most important to the narrator. Throughout the entire chapter, their opinions of him, especially in regards to his speech are what he looks to for his identity construction. Once he realizes he will be taking part in the battle royal, the debauchery and degradation of the concept eludes him, his main concern remains his impending speech. He senses it may “detract from the dignity” of the speech. The irony is palpable. While being subjected to the most abject display of hegemony, racism, oppression, and inhumane treatment, which is a practiced, perfected, and highly orchestrated debacle of the basest ugliness of humanity, not unlike cockfights or dogfights, the narrator mentions his speech ten times. Throughout the fight he tells of going over his speech in his mind, wanting to deliver his speech, and being concerned that losing the one on one battle with Tatlcok will work against his speech. He continues, as he is being beaten within an inch of his life for the entertainment of the ‘big shots,’ wondering if he would be allowed to give his speech once he had lost to Tatlock, and thinking he might stand on the electrical rug to give his speech. His identity depends on the acceptance of these ‘creatures’ so much so that while fighting back with “hopeless desperation,” he thinks, “I wanted to deliver my speech more than anything else in the world because I felt that only these men could judge truly my ability.” So dependent on their opinion and judgement of him, he blames Tatlock, “that stupid clown” for “ruining his chances.” Self- realization and the formation of his identity, of his own design, does not occur within the confines of this episode in the narrator’s life. He has not yet discovered he is an invisible man, either. On the contrary he is far from invisible, not to the other boys, and especially not to the town’s leading white citizens. The narrator has yet to see that being too visible, thinking he is above his situation, and being too well-spoken is his downfall; it is for these reasons he is the recipient of hate, mockery, and brutality. It is because he did not live by his grandfather’s credo; though his speech professed humility, he lacked even the slightest. Clearly, the narrator prized adoration and praise, triumph and success.
Though the contents of his speech called for humility, pride was clearly a character trait, fault, or otherwise, dependent on the situation. His pride was a fault in the situation of the “Battle Royal” and the invitation to speak at the gathering of the “town’s leading white citizens.” His prideful attitude exudes from phrases such as “Everyone praised me and I was invited,” and “it was a triumph for the whole community.” Even after he had to deliver his speech, all the while choking down blood and split, he says, “I was so moved that I could hardly express my thanks,” when given a gift, the cherished briefcase, by the superintendent. Upon receiving the gift, “I felt an importance that I had never dreamed.” Unfathomable as it seems, he still reveled in their adulation, and was unable to see the duplicity of the entire
event. Still, the narrator does not see what is directly in front of him, around him, mocking him, oppressing him, making a slave of him. Blindness, obscured vision reverberates throughout the chapter. From the beginning, the narrator’s self-professed naiveté indicates blind innocence. The smoke-filled room obscures his vision, and constricts the life from his lungs. The blindfolds cinched over his eyes during the battle royal renders him incapacitated. The removal of the blindfold does not improve his sight. He nearly loses his eye in the one on one fight. Blind ambition continues to propel him. He only sees the truth in a dream, and yet he fails to acknowledge the truth revealed in the dream, admitting, “But at the time I had no insight into its meaning.” Perhaps it is while in college he learns to see the truth, and then becomes invisible, and then visible again as the next Booker T. Washington, or Ralph Ellison. We do not know; the narrator’s name is never revealed.
The narrator of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is the victim of his own naiveté. Throughout the novel he trusts that various people and groups are helping him when in reality they are using him for their own benefit. They give him the illusion that he is useful and important, all the while running him in circles. Ellison uses much symbolism in his book, some blatant and some hard to perceive, but nothing embodies the oppression and deception of the white hierarchy surrounding him better than his treasured briefcase, one of the most important symbols in the book.
	The narrator in Ellison’s short story suffers much. He is considered to be one of the brighter youths in his black community. The young man is given the opportunity to give a speech to some of the more prestigious white individuals. The harsh treatment that he is dealt in order to perform his task is quite symbolic. It represents the many hardships that the African American people endured while they fought to be treated equally in the United States. He expects to give his speech in a positive and normal environment. What faces him is something that he never would have imagined. The harsh conditions that the boys competing in the battle royal must face are phenomenal. At first the boys are ushered into a room where a nude woman is dancing. The white men yell at the boys for looking and not looking at the woman. It is as if they are showing them all of the good things being white can bring, and then saying that they aren’t good enough for it since they were black. Next the boys must compete in the battle royal. Blindly the boys savagely beat one another. This is symbolic of the ...
An important motif that the author returns to at the end of the book is blindness. Beginning with the blindfolds in the battle royal, then to the blindness of the pastor, Ellison highlights how their physical blindness is also figurative. The black men who fought in the royal were blind and failed to see the white men were taking advantage of them. By the end of the book, the narrator recognizes that “the true darkness lies in [his] mind”(579) but fails to see that had he made other choices, he would never have wound up where he is at the end of the novel. He spends the last moments of the book underground,
Throughout the novel, Ralph Ellison used symbols to tell his story in a powerful and vivid way. He was successful in using literally devices that engaged and entertained his audience. The blindfold was a symbol of oppression as well as blacks’ struggle for equality and an ironic symbol of individuality and insight. Generally, the novel was able to deliver an important message about societies’ struggle for dominance on one hand; and a way of making oneself free from such brutal treatment. It clearly showed that respect for one another; and one’s identity is the only way of solving conflicts and a way to live in peace.
The opening scene of the novel introduces the theme of blindness. As the narrator says, “When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination-indeed, everything and anything except me,” (Ellison 3). This quote shows how people do not see the narrator. The narrator says that people “refuse” to see him. An example of this is when he bumps into a white man at night. The narrator says, "…when it occurred to me that the man had not seen me, actually, that he, as far as he knew, was in the middle of a walking nightmare!” (Ellison 4). This quote is an example of how people are blind and do not see the narrator. The narrator realizes that the man had insulted him because he did not see him. Blindness is a recurring theme in the novel, and shows how people refuse to see the truth in their community. Another example of blindness in the beginning of the novel is the battle royal that the narrator is forced to take part in. All of the fighters are blindfolded, and therefore are blind to see how the white people are taking advantage of them. Blindness is shown as a negative theme in the novel.
The narrator in “Battle Royal”, by Ralph Ellison, is too naive and meek to challenge his place in a society ruled by whites. He is a young, black man trapped in a world blighted with social inequality with limited opportunity to advance in life just because of his race. He is torn apart by his grandfather's advice and by his desire to please members of white society. Ellison uses satire and symbolism to depict the narrators struggle for equality and identity.
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The story “Battle Royal” by Ralph Ellison displays a few specific themes through the story which are easy to depict. A few themes from this story are, first racism and finding his self identity, then the danger of fighting stereotype with stereotype, and last blindness. These themes play an important role in the story to better help the reader understand it.
Ellison begins "Battle Royal" with a brief introduction to the story's theme with a passage from the Invisible Man's thoughts: "All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was . . . I was looking for myself and asking everyone questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself. But first I had to discover that I am an invisible man!" (Ellison, 556). In this passage, Ellison reveals the identity crisis faced by not only the Invisible Man, but by the entire African American race as well. He builds on this theme as he follows the I.M. through his life experiences. ...
In 1954, Ralph Ellison penned one of the most consequential novels on the experience of African Americans in the 20th century. Invisible Man chronicles the journey of an unnamed narrator from late youth until well into adulthood. As an African American attempting to thrive in a white-dominant culture, the narrator struggles to discover his true identity because situations are never how they truly appear to him. One of the ways Ellison portrays this complex issue is through the duality of visual pairs, such as gold and brass, black and white, and light and dark. These pairs serve to emphasize the gap between appearance and reality as the narrator struggles to develop his identity throughout the novel.
To understand the narrator of the story, one must first explore Ralph Ellison. Ellison grew up during the mid 1900’s in a poverty-stricken household (“Ralph Ellison”). Ellison attended an all black school in which he discovered the beauty of the written word (“Ralph Ellison”). As an African American in a predominantly white country, Ellison began to take an interest in the “black experience” (“Ralph Ellison”). His writings express a pride in the African American race. His work, The Invisible Man, won much critical acclaim from various sources. Ellison’s novel was considered the “most distinguished novel published by an American during the previous twenty years” according to a Book Week poll (“Ralph Ellison”). One may conclude that the Invisible Man is, in a way, the quintessence Ralph Ellison. The Invisible Man has difficulty fitting into a world that does not want to see him for who he is. M...
One of the major motifs in Invisible Man is blindness. The first time we’re shown blindness in the novel is at the battle royal. The blindfolds that all of the contestants wear symbolize how the black society is blind to the way white society is still belittling them, despite the abolishment of slavery. When he arrives at the battle, the narrator says “I was told that since I was to be there anyway I might as well take part in the battle royal to be fought by some of my schoolmates as part of the entertainment” (Ellison 17). Although, the white men asked him to come to the battle royal in order to deliver his graduation speech, they force him to participate in the battle royal, where the white men make young black men fight each other as a form of entertainment for them. When the black men put their blindfolds on to fight in this battle, they are blind, both figuratively and literally. They can't see the people they are fighting against, just as they can't see how the white men are exploiting them for their own pleasure. Shelly Jarenski claims “the Battle Royal establishes the relationship between white power, male power, and (hetero)sexual power, the “self-grounding presumptions” of dominant subjectivity” ...
Consumed with a fear for others opinions on him, leads him to overthink every word he utters and every action he takes. The protagonist had to drive Mr. Norton, a rich white man, around and to follow his orders. He did not want to say or do anything to make Mr. Norton think less of him. He was reflecting on his emotions claiming, “We were driving, the powerful motor purring and filling me with pride and anxiety” (Ellison page 37). While in the car with Mr. Norton he is so nervous about his judgements, he is anxious. He cannot complete simple tasks nor have conversations without thinking of what he will do ahead of time to prevent any negative connotations to himself. The protagonist is constantly searching to reach others standards instead of living up to his own personal standards. This anxiety results in him not being who he wants to be, but instead suffocating his true character to mold into others preconceived ideas and standards for him, which can create a decrease in confidence when speaking loud to people, not only in speeches also in conversations. Due to his low self-esteem, he faces unhealthy affects in everything he does publically and personally. When interacting with others he is not genuine to himself and his rhetoric lacks
A hallmark of Ralph Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man, is the author’s selection of characters, many of whom are alienated from American society. These characters, whether major or minor, collectively portray American ideas in the early 20th-century. A prime example of Ellison’s characterization is Lucious Brockway, who employs his personal creed to alienate himself, demonstrating American assumptions and morals also.
Upon opening Ralph Waldo Ellison’s book The “Invisible Man”, one will discover the shocking story of an unnamed African American and his lifelong struggle to find a place in the world. Recognizing the truth within this fiction leads one to a fork in its reality; One road stating the narrators isolation is a product of his own actions, the other naming the discriminatory views of the society as the perpetrating force infringing upon his freedom. Constantly revolving around his own self-destruction, the narrator often settles in various locations that are less than strategic for a man of African-American background. To further address the question of the narrator’s invisibility, it is important not only to analyze what he sees in himself, but more importantly if the reflection (or lack of reflection for that matter) that he sees is equal to that of which society sees. The reality that exists is that the narrator exhibits problematic levels of naivety and gullibility. These flaws of ignorance however stems from a chivalrous attempt to be a colorblind man in a world founded in inequality. Unfortunately, in spite of the black and white line of warnings drawn by his Grandfather, the narrator continues to operate on a lost cause, leaving him just as lost as the cause itself. With this grade of functioning, the narrator continually finds himself running back and forth between situations of instability, ultimately leading him to the self-discovery of failure, and with this self-discovery his reasoning to claim invisibility.
The Langman, F. H. & Co., Inc. The "Reconsidering Invisible Man" The Critical Review. 18 (1976) 114-27. Lieber, Todd M. "Ralph Ellison and the Metaphor of Invisibility in Black Literary Tradition." American Quarterly.