In the story of Battle Royal, Ralph Ellison shows us various things to bring our attention to the pain that himself and many others of his race suffered during that time. I enjoyed reading Battle Royal; I feel Ellison’s overall message in telling this story was not only to bring light to the suffering that he and others of his race suffered but also to encourage his readers to never give up hope. Throughout his fight during the Royal Battle, there were several times he wanted to give up, stop fighting and go home, but he didn’t. Although he was terribly fearful of the fight, he continued to fight and it paid off for him in the end. I feel I can relate to his story and his overall message. We encounter many fights and struggles in life …show more content…
Why is he still continuing to fight when he only came to give a speech? Throughout reading his description of his experience during the Battle Royal, I began to realize that his only focus was the bigger picture and the bigger picture was to give his speech. He describes to us how his day went from joy and excitement to give his speech to the pain and humiliation he felt after the fight was over. Throughout the process he felt fear, physical pain and humiliation. He felt fear not only from the physical fight he was about to encounter but he also feared the crowd, the white men that came to watch him make a mockery of himself. He felt physical pain from the repeated blows to his face and body. He felt humiliation because the event itself seems very degrading. Men forced to fight, attack and destroy each other like wild animals, while the men in the crowd just sit and watch and laugh at them. Ellison felt that took away from the dignity of his speech (Pg. 269). Through it all, the one thing that remained on his mind no matter what he was going through was given his speech. Throughout the fight he never lost hope. His hope and determination to give his speech paid off for him, had he given up early on and didn’t participate in the fight he would have never received his great reward in the end of a full college …show more content…
Although he didn’t quite understand the words of his grandfather I think his interpretation of them is what help motivate him and encouraged him to continue to fight through his struggles to achieve greater things in life. I think his interpretation of his grandfather’s words “Live with your head in the lion’s mouth” (Pg. 268) is to take risk and continue to do things even when they seem fearful. “Overcome’em with yeses, undermine’em with grins, agree’em to death and destruction” I think his interpretation of that is to always be that yes man, always agree with the white man even when you truly disagree. Always be willing to go above and beyond to please that man and do whatever it takes to achieve what it is that you want from him. I think Ellison showed many examples of living out his grandfather’s last words, such as fighting in the Battle Royal even though he was fearful or the fact that he never really spoke his mind (Pg. 269). Instead he just spoke and acted in the way he felt the white people wanted him to act and they praised him for
The authors have created these characters in the short stories to undergo changes, which help make it through tough events. The character development in the stories is important because it shows the changes and events that help shape and create the main characters of the story. Both authors shape the characters through contrasting events, making the characters change from a static to a dynamic character by the end of the story. The authors tie in both the past with the present to create a twist on the future of the main characters. “Soldier's Home,” by Ernest Hemingway, and “Battle Royal,” by Ralph Ellison, are both short- fictional stories sharing a common literary characteristic of character development, influenced by the other characters and events in the story.
Most of the time people do not give a chance to talk people because they are different, so they are closed off by a barrier that in the right circumstances can be broken by courage. In the film an example of breaking a racial barrier would be when Robinson is being yelled at by Ben chapman and his teammate Eddie stanky stands up for him and defends him. This demonstrates that people can change the way that they view someone if they are able to get close to them and allow them in their social space. Another example of courage breaking barriers would be when Branch Rickey told Robinson that he saw a white boy playing and imitating Robinson’s signature moves. This demonstrates that courage can truly break a racial barrier and allow to hugely impact a different class of people even though black people are so hated on . In other words, having the courage to stand up to something, or do something courageous allows to be able to change how people react to new
still fighting for his equal rights after all these years. Cecil wants him to understand, that he has to accept that the circumstances for the black population will always be the same.
Through every single obstacle a person went through no one gave up. Colored people did not lose hope in becoming equal to white people because they knew they were capable. What the author was trying to prove was exactly that. Although blacks were slaves and were always belittled by white they proved to be more than what the whites thought they were capable of. They stood up for themselves and they did it in several events that occurred in the book. For example, in the chapter a black teenager, James Crawford, was not slightly intimidated by a deputy registrar that attempted to sound intimidating. In the conversation the registrar made some menacing remarks to this young African American teenager saying he would put a bullet through the teenagers head. Not afraid at all, Crawford valiantly told him if it happened he would be dead, but people would come from all over the world. This young man was not afraid to stand up for himself and was not going to tolerate it in any way. Malcolm X was another inspiration to African Americans for the way he stood up for them. He had a strong connection with the people who were influenced by him. In late 1964, Malcolm X told a group of black students from Mississippi, “You’ll get freedom by letting your enemy know that you’ll do anything to get your freedom; then you’ll get it” (Zinn 461). This quote connected to how
The setting of "Battle Royal" is crucial to the understanding of the theme and the purpose of the short story, the use of symbolism highlights the African American 's struggle for social equality and Ellison 's emphasis of practicing humility is the central theme within the literary work. The use of these ideas, techniques and devices illustrate the theme of identity and social
Later the narrator is an educated young man in his teens. He's followed his grandfathers' words and it results in him being obedient to the views of the white men. The narrator is invited to recite a speech at a local town gathering which included politicians and town leaders. The narrator is forced to compete in a battle royal. He had to box blindfolded, get electrified by a rug filled with fake brass coins, and humiliated when it was time for him to give his speech. The problem with the boys understanding of the grandfather's ideology is that he doesn't know where his limit is. It almost seems as if he would go through anything the white men put in his way but even after that, the men tell him to correct himself when he even mentions social equality. The narrator is rewarded for his obedience with a scholarship, but the true value of the scholarship is questioned in a dream where the scholarship paper read, "To Whom It May Concern Keep This Nigger-Boy Running.
Another thing he was trying to do with this book is to show people that black street leaders can become local heroes. Even though they might have started out as street fighters, they can change their life to become a political group and work towards changing the system that they feel will never accept them for the people that they really are. In this book the author shows you a way to build this nation’s communities that are very much under resourced. It also lets you know that there are things that we can do to change a bad situation, as long as we are willing to work towards making a change and there also must be resources available to help make that change. In other words, “where there’s a will, there’s a
Many papers seem to show good fortune for the narrator, but only provide false dreams. The narrator’s prize of a brief case containing his scholarship first illustrates this falsehood: “take this prize and keep it well. Consider it a badge of office. Prize it. Keep developing as you are and some day it will be filled with important papers that will help shape the destiny of your people” (32). The narrator is filled with joy from receiving his scholarship and brief case but subconsciously knows of the shallowness of the superintendent’s heart felt speech. Ellison shows this subconscious knowledge through the narrator’s dream of receiving a letter of deep and truthful meaning: “And I did and in it I found an engraved document containing a short message in letters of gold…” “To Whom It May Concern,” I intoned. “Keep This Nigger-Boy Running” (33). Even though it is just a dream, the white people actually do want to keep the narrator and his race running after false dreams.
	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 ...
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.
The narrator can either succeed at being powerful and influential or he can be one of the persons who talks too much, but shows no action. He does not want to be a part of the masses of black people that do not know what it is that they really want. They want to be happy, but do not know how to achieve this happiness. Ellison often compares birds to black...
He experienced the kind that the majority unintentionally masks their racism. They believe that their strategies are not racist, but their attempts to not be racist makes it worse. They try to control minorities instead of listening to their issues and using their privilege to actually help. The Brotherhood is a Marxist minded organization that is predominantly white. The Brotherhood recruits African-American men to hold certain positions in order to spread the word about an experiment and methodology they have developed to promote equality in the communities. However, all that their methods did was control the way African-Americans think, how they relay their ideals, and what jobs that they can have. They took what stereotypical view they had of African-Americans and designed a template for how they think African-Americans to act in order to form peace. African-Americans are not guinea pigs for social and environmental experiments. They are not a species that made their way to America, and now there needs to be a plan in order to control them. America is now a land where millions of people from different backgrounds can influence others from their cultural experiences. The Brotherhood’s use of the term “brother” is a way to include themselves in a culture they did not understand. The only reason that they cared about how African-Americans thrived in the North is because they noticed that a culture
He enjoys what little power he has in the African American community, so much in fact that he says that he would rather see every black man in the country lynched than give up his "power." & nbsp; Ras the Exhorter (later the Destroyer) is the stereotypical black supremacist. One of the most memorable characters to me, Ras battles for social equality; literally. Literally meaning prince in one of Ethiopia's languages and mimicking the sound of Ra, the Egyptian sun God, Ras encompasses the stereotypical black-nationalist. By using these allusions, Ellison is establishing the character's personality even before he acts. Ras's philosophy, one that was unorthodox at the time of publishing, is that blacks should cast off oppression and prejudice by destroying the ability of white men to control them.
Authors use figurative language to express nuanced ideas, those that beggar literal description. Such language provides the author an opportunity to play with his reader’s imagination and sense. A piece of literature that uses figurative language is more intriguing and engaging than a writing that aims only to explain. Ralph Ellison’s use of figurative language in “The Battle Royal” paints a powerful and unique story of oppression and the struggle for self-discovery. His juxtaposition of literal and figural language gave the story a dream like quality, all while creating a profound and vivid image.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free”. Which shows how even though the Emancipation Proclamation freed the African Americans from slavery, they still are not free because of segregation. He then transitions to the injustice and suffering that the African Americans face. He makes this argument when he proclaims, “We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream”.