Some examples are the stripper, the actual battle royal itself, and the briefcase. The stripper in “Battle Royal” was a pretty obvious symbol for me to find. In the story, the black boys are all rushed into a ballroom of the hotel and they stand in a group surrounded by white men and in the center off all this stood a blonde woman completely naked. As the woman began to dance the black boys all immediately became terrified and frantic because they didn’t know what to do. Some look down because they don’t want to be accused of looking at her.
The main character featured in Ralph Ellison’s short story Battle Royal serves as a satisfying example of an unintentional initiation process. Ellison’s story takes place in terminally racist southern America somewhere around the mid 20th century where we are presented with an freshly graduated anonymous black male who is our narrator. The author reveals to us in his story that this young black male is both naive and limited even after his cruel initiation into a world of racism. The youth in this story was recognized for his oral talent of delivering speeches. A honorary expectation was bestowed upon him in the form of a request to deliver a speech to an assembly comprised of the town’s “leading white citizens” (Meyer 209).
Ellison describes her as,“ … a magnificent blonde- stark naked.”(2), and with a, “… small American flag tattoo on her belly…”(2) This image coupled with the image of the young black men being,”… rushed to the front of the ballroom…”(2), by the white men, is meant to represent America, and all things about America that African-Americans lusted for. While looking upon the woman, the protagonist describes feeling,” …a wave of irrational guilt and fear… My teeth chattered, my skin turned goose flesh… I looked in spite of myself… had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked.”(Ellison 2) This would have been a rational feeling for a black man in the 1950’s. Battle royal was written in 1952,
Ellison’s story Battle Royal takes place in the South during the early twentieth century and is written in the first person point of view and narrated by a young African American boy struggling to find his place within society. Through the use of humility and humiliation he is eventually able to come to the realization that he can be nobody but himself and he should stop trying to be somebody else. The Theme of Ellison’s Battle Royal is that nobody can tell you what your identity should be, that only you can figure out who and what you should be and that nobody else can make that decision for you. The narrator is troubled when he overhears his grandfather on his death bed tell his father that he wants him to keep up the good fight and
Paul Robeson is right because he wants to bring up not just an athlete but an entire black team together with the black ownership. Rickey has already decided himself and told Jackie that he is part of the Dodgers team no matter what the decision is, but he tells him to keep quite while he convinces other members in the meeting. He said “you’re moving up the varsity. Congratulations, son. From this day forward, it’s Rickey and Robinson.
As the white woman dances in front of the black boys participating in the battle royal (as a result, participating in their public dehumanization), the narrator has a desire for her; however, at the same time wants “to caress and destroy her” (Ellison 249). The white woman symbolizes a forbidden freedom essentially “stripping” the narrator of his decency and innocence. The tattoo on her body is an ironic gesture inserted by Ellison. Ironically, America is presumed to be the place where all men are created equal”; however, the white woman is placed within an environment that refuses to accept equality. Therefore, as the white men taunt the black boys with the white woman, they in turn taunt them with their freedom.
Racial Glaze Have you ever been humiliated for the entrainment of others? In Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal,” a young black man is forced to strip off his clothes and fight blindfolded with his peers in front of the white southern town leaders. After the fight and embarrassment had ended, he was then told you stand up, bloodied and disoriented, and recite his graduation speech. The vague southern setting of Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal” supports the central idea that sometimes in a society dominated by racism, personal accomplishments and individuality are disregarded. In “Battle Royal,” Ellison gives an obscure description of the time and place in which the story is set.
The film Journey of the African American Athlete took its audience on a journey of the struggles and achievements that the African American athlete underwent. The film showed a different side of African American athletes, in a sense that they have not always played football, basketball, and other sports that they dominate in today. Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, Althea Gibson, and Arthur Ashe are some of the athletes that were mentioned in the film. Jack Johnson was the first African American heavy weight boxer and Joe Louis won the title of World Heavyweight Champion. Joe Louis’ s career was shaped for him through his contract.
For the most part it was him expressing his feeling and telling stories of how the young black people were wasting their lives and not actually bothering to learn how to be real people or learn how to speak properly. His quote in the very beginning of the speech sets up the entire speech: “David, listen to me. It’s not what he’s doing to you. It’s what you’re not doing.” What this quote is implying to this speech is the fact that black people nowadays have had everything set up for them from past events but they are now wasting all of the opportunities that they have gained. The main reason for his speech is to get people (mostly black parents) to act toward getting young black people to be more like the rest of the country in respect to education, language and motivation.
The Power Of The English Language Evidence that Maya Angelou’s essay “Graduation” might be a parable of slavery begins taking shape when Mr. Edward Donleavy is introduced as the guest speaker to the Lafayette Country Training School’s graduating class of 1940 (168). Donleavy, who is a white man, throughout his commencement speech insults the graduating class and the audience, which are all black. Donleavy boasted of his procurement of improvements in academics such to Central School, which was a white school, such as receiving the “newest microscopes and chemistry equipment” (168), while he implied that blacks were maybe incapable of achieving the level of academia that would require such equipment. Instead, Donleavy pointed out athletic