Ralph Ellison's nameless protagonist in "Battle Royal" is a young African American struggling to find his place in society in the early twentieth century American South. Rather than provide the reader with an essay of statistics and facts about racial discrimination, Ellison chose to create a short story full of imagery and satire that allows the reader to step into the horrific experiences of the young man. More importantly, Ellison uses the key events of "Battle Royal" to satirically depict real cultural issues affecting African American society throughout history. Early in the story, we learn that the central character is graduating from high school. He is considered an excellent speaker, and an all white men's club invites him to present his
Knock his guys out” (23). No one would see the individual him. Being blindfolded made all the other men invisible too. So it’s not only him as the invisible one. While blindfolded he could no longer control is motions, “I stumbled about like a baby or a drunken man” (22) and that shows that he really couldn’t see.
The Overlook on Battle Royale Battle Royal, by Ralph Ellison is a short story about a young African American boy who takes his grandfather’s very last words to heart he uses these words as motivation and presents a speech at his graduation, so great that the superintendent invited him to read it at Battle Royal, after presenting the speech to all the leading white citizens he feels as if he has made his grandfather proud. Once entering the main ballroom where Battle Royale is taking place the young boy denotes that it’s not what he expected, and is then forced to take part in a fight. “There was nothing to do but what we were told.” The young boy and a few others were blind folded and expected to beat up on each other. After a while he was one of the last boys in the ring having to face a vicious black male “Tatlock, the biggest of the gang.” The young boy didn’t care to win the fight he was more focused on delivering his speech. Finally when the fight was over the boys were tricked into grabbing coins, bills and pieces of gold which were intentionally placed on an electric rug shocking everyone who tried grabbing them, but the boys didn’t care.
It is not possible for him to live this “phony free lifestyle” especially when he is giving in to the things he made fun of before. For example, all he talks about is how much he hates the movies and actors but at one point in his life he actually goes to the movies by himself. This just shows the hypocrisy of Holden Caulfield
The novel is a story about self-realization through action. The old men gathered at the Marshall plantation spent their entire lives running from trouble. After years of social, political, and economic suppression in a racist world that many black people long to stand up for. Gaines uses the setting of the novel and symbolism of both the tractor and sugar cane as tools that rally the old men to stand up, and specifically through the characterization of Charlie Gaines, he successfully develops the theme of redefining black masculinity through courage. The setting of the segregated south plays a key role in the illustration of the racial tension between blacks and whites.
Anh Vu Engl 1A Erin O’briant 06/22/2011 “Notes of A Native Son” – A question to be answered "Notes of A Native Son" is one of the essays from the book that shares the same name written by James Baldwin. This essay tells a true story about how the author's father's death has affected his point of view of what he, as a Negro, was and how he had dealt with life in the society from 1940 to 1950. This time period is known as a transition from slavery to freedom and that is the reason why it happened to be very chaotic. Some white men just did not accept the fact that the situation had changed. So they just kept holding the thought that black people were not deserved to be treated equally.
Hannah Dunn AP English Steffen November 8, 2010 “Battle Royal” Ralph Ellison's short story, “Battle Royal”, compares a young man's fight in a battle royal to the fight of the African Americans through time. The author uses his past experiences and own life situations to create a vivid plot and story. A biographical approach is used by Ellison to tell the story of a high school scholar invited to give a speech in front of many important people of the town. Instead he is trapped in a fight. The battle royal paints the picture of the African Americans' fight for their rights.
By reading the principal’s speech, Richard was saying what the white power wanted him to say and to Richard this would be giving in to the very thing he hated so much. Richard was willing to leave school without a diploma instead of this. White people alienated Richard from his environment because he did not accept the way of life that other black people did. Richard’s relatives never understood Richard and because of this he was alienated from his family and his own people. Shorty is the young black boy who gets beat by the white people and jokes about it.
He adores the college but is thrown out before long by its president, Dr. Bledsoe, a great educator and leader of his race, for permitting a white visitor to visit the wrong places in the vicinity. Bearing what he believes to be a letter of recommendation from Dr. Bledsoe he cornes to New York. The letter actually warns prospective employers against him. He is recruited by white radicals and becomes a Negro leader, and in the radical movement he learns eventually that throughout his entire life his relations with other men have been schematic; neither with Negroes nor with whites has he ever been visible,
Now, let’s look at what a short summary of Gates’ essay would look like: In the essay “What’s in a Name,” Henry Louis Gates expresses his viewpoint on the discrimination that his parents, particularly his father, experienced during his childhood in the South. The specific example that Gates refers to involves an incident where a shopkeeper who was friendly with his father referred to him as “George,” a name that Gates now realizes was a popular way of referring to African Americans in those times. Perhaps because his father made good money and the shopkeeper felt uneasy about his status, or simply because of the color of his skin, Gates’ father had to accept this discrimination and there was nothing he could do about it. As his mother told young Gates, “It was one of those things” (p. 6). (A summary should be Complete, Accurate, Brief, Independent, and Neutral