“Battle Royal” Fighting to gain freedom doesn’t mean that one will gain equality. The Civil War ended but African American ex-slaves still suffer from discrimination in this society. Ralph Elision portrays a life of a black young man who tries to achieve his dream in white society. The narrator is haunted by his grandfather’s last words before he die throughout his young adulthood. The narrator recalls delivering the class speech at his high school graduation.
“Come on, ya big bastard get up on your feet. No big son-of-a-bitch is gonna laugh at me. I’ll show you who’s yella.” Suddenly Curley gets closer to Lennie and his left hand swings at full speed slashing Lennie and then he punches down Lennie’s nose with his right. Lennie’s nose drools with blood while, he lets out a cry of terror. Things start to get out of control.
There is much intra-race conflict; the narrator as to fight Tatlock. The narrator started fighting automatically, without a solid purpose, fighting against members of his own race. He must prove himself to the ’white men’. Left in the ring is the strong versus the weak, educated against uneducated. All tat lock wants to do is rip the narrator apart, maybe
Deep Analysis of Battle Royale By Ralph Ellison Royale by Ralph Ellison is about a nameless protagonist young African American who struggles to find his place in society in the early 20th century in the south. Ellison doesn’t provided a statistics or facts about racial discrimination instead Ellison uses imagery and satire that allows readers to step into the horrific experiences of the young man described in the story. More importantly, Ellison uses the key events of “Battle Royal” to satirically show real cultural issues affecting African American society throughout history. Early in the story we learn a few things about the main character for example he is graduating from high school, also that he is an excellent speaker and that he is invited to read his speech in an all white men’s club. At this time the young man believes in the accommodations philosophy for his race “I visualized myself as a potential Booker T. Washington” (231).
Before the fight started a nude dancer was put in the ring as a distraction. She was mistreated and thrown about the room wildly. The boys were blindfolded and told to go at it. The young teen and one other boy were the only two left in the ring, but the other boy won. After the fight there was a rug with money on it to pay the boys for the fight.
This seems to be another attempt to keep the African-American's against each other, sending him where only their race is allowed, or intended to attend. Although the narrator accomplishes a piece of his goal, as well as his grandfather's "curse", he has a dream accompanied by his grandfather once more. He gives the narrator a series of envelopes within the briefcase, and reads a document that read, ""To Whom It May Concern....Keep This Nigger-Boy Running."" (Ellison 287) The curse of his grandfather has yet to dissolve, for the narrator must keep
The students are marching like lemmings to their demise and ultimately falling into a meat grinder. In the next scene they reclaim their individuality and begin to revolt against the oppressive bonds by knocking down the wall. As the school burns down the teacher is overpowered by the students. The boy then wakes up from the dream . Pink Floyd’s lyrics “All in all you’re just another brick in the wall” is a metaphor for conforming.
Douglass unintentionally heard of people around him talking between them that whites maintain power over black slaves by keeping them uneducated. He instantly shocked. Douglass has known intuitively that slavery is evil, but has been mystified by the logic of how slavery works. Douglass decided to educate himself and to escape from slavery. However, he is later taken from the Aulds and placed with Edward Covey, a slave “breaker,” for a year.
He aspires to emulate Dr. Bledsoe at the conclusion of his educational journey. That journey is cut short and the Invisible Man leaves not only the college, but the South to continue his search in finding his identity; his identity being his ideal place in society as a black man, but because it he is a black man it is hard to communicate with other people because they will not give him the time of day, thus hinders his search for finding his self in the sense that you have to be able to communicate in order for people to notice you. The search begins with his desire to attend college. Education represented on opportunity to escape ignorance and poverty. The ability to attend the Negro college comes to him through hard work.
XXXXXXXXXXXX ENG 102/D01 Textual Analysis 12 June 2008 The Color within Me What would you do if placed in a society that everything you were was not the norm; and what would you do to prevail over the odds, and try to over come such obstacles that stand in your way? In the story Battle Royal, by Ralph Ellison is about a naive young colored man that loses all his fights in this unrealistic society dominated by white men, but in the end still prevails to win the battle. We can see three forms of discrimination which are repression (emotional), suppression (mental), and oppression (physical). All of these types of methods were use in the story to control the underclass (Black men) in a society which was not so easy for them to