“Battle Royal” challenges equality throughout the narrator’s speech. People need to be shown equality because in this short story, the blacks were seriously injured when the whites made them go to boxing matches and they were tased/electrocuted when they took the money the whites left for them. The author Ralph Ellison shows in “Battle Royal” that there is an issue between race and the people need equality and social responsibility, so both races can be equal with one another.
The thesis shows the way that people need equality, so the blacks and whites can respect one another. The whites state, “We mean to do right by you, but you’ve got to know your place at times” (Ellison 11). This explains the way the whites are showing equality towards the narrator and soon it might happen to all of the blacks.
The short story shows symbolism with the dancing blonde woman, boxing match, blindfolds, the coins, and the speech. The “speech” symbolizes social responsibility between the white and black races. For example, the narrator of this story is wanting to read the speech about the way that people need to treat one another, but the whites did not listen to the speech until the end. The boxing match, the coins, and the blindfolds symbolize the suffering of the blacks. The boxing match symbolizes the way the blacks were in pain and suffering, while the whites were being comfortable and enjoyed watching the suffering of the blacks. The blindfold symbolizes the way the blacks suffered by getting knocked out in the boxing match.The narrator says, “Blindfolded, I could not control my motions” (Ellison 5). This discusses the fact that the narrator is blindfolded and he cannot control his mind and his display of knowledge for the speech. The coins symbolize greed by the whites. The whites gave the coins to the blacks, who are in need of money. But once they held a hand on the coins, they will be electrocuted. The dancing blonde woman symbolizes that the blacks cannot marry a white woman because there was a law that prevented interracial marriage, which is known as the “Loving vs Virginia” law case that prevented marriage from blacks and whites, according to the story’s historical content. The blonde woman has an American flag tattooed on her belly which symbolizes the way blacks were prevented from intermarriage between races in America. The narrator states “and yet to stroke where below the small American flag tattooed upon her belly her thighs formed a capital V”(Ellison 3). This explains where the American flag tattoo is located on her body and it relates to how the dancing blonde woman can be symbolized and the way she is a way to be used as the American dream.
The race experience explains that the whites treat all the blacks as animals by putting them in boxing matches and the whites were being forceful and brutal to the blacks by yelling to them and forcing them to punch one another. It shows how violent the boxing match really is, “In one comer I glimpsed a boy violently punching the air and heard him scream in pain as he smashed his hand against a ring post” (Ellison 6). Another race experience in this short story is that this story discusses mostly about the dancing blonde woman. The reason that this shows race experience is that this woman is trying to make all the white men be in love with her and they feared looking, were not disgusted so the narrator wants to read the speech and it is not about how people should treat one another. The short story discusses the way that blacks cannot be in an interracial marriage because it is a law for them not to break according to the culture that they are living in.
The background of this short short story discusses the historical content between the Reconstruction era to Jim Crow law era. The reason that the story occurred during the Reconstruction era is that the grandfather is discussing to his grandson about the way he was being in a relationship with the whites during the Reconstruction era and he was treated horribly by the whites being brutal to him. The prologue of this story discusses grandpa about his experience with the whites during the Reconstruction era: “I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy’s country ever since I give up my gun in the Reconstruction” (Ellison 1). Afterwards, it continued around the Jim Crow law, when the whites were in contempt with the blacks, who are in suffering at boxing matches, shootings, fist fighting, or anything that the whites find that is considered violence. This quote explains how the blacks suffered in the boxing match as the whites were being soothed in this short story: “The harder we fought the more threatening the men became” (Ellison 6). This explains as the blacks are fighting one another they are suffering by being abused brutally. Another part of the quote, “the more threatening the men became” explains the men as the whites were making the blacks threatening one another as a form their race’s entertainment (Ellison 6).
In the short story, the narrator’s experience is calm in the beginning of the short story, then his experience was abhorrent, atrocious, gruesome, and cruel in the plot of the story, and his experience was then calm again. This promise the grandfather tells to the narrator of the story: “On his deathbed he called my father to him and said, “Son, after I’m gone I want you to keep up the good fight”” (Ellison 1). This shows an explanation about the narrator’s grandfather giving him a promise that he discussed that he had a lot of trouble with his lifetime despite the fact of his race experience between the whites and blacks and he does not want it to happen to anyone, especially his grandson. Throughout the events of the narrator’s experience is that he is in a bad experience because he is in a boxing match and he may be afraid to go in the boxing match. During the boxing match, the narrator is fearful in this short story, when he is set in a boxing match: “I stumbled like a baby or a drunken man” (Ellison 5). So, the narrator decided to make a speech similar to what Martin Luther King Junior did with his “I Have a Dream” speech.
The narrator creates the speech, so the whites to listen about the way they are needing to get along with the blacks, because the speech can make them understand equality. They did not listen until the end. Then, the experience of the narrator seems to be exciting because he seems excited when he is reading the speech and the whites are listening to every word of this essay. Once he was done with his speech, the whites had given him a scholarship to college, congratulating him for his way to be helpful to the people that were living in all of America. This quote explains one of the things that was used in this speech: “When ever I uttered a word of three or more syllables a group of voices yelled at me to repeat it” (Ellison 10). This quote says when the narrator is reading the essay, the whites were yelling at him to repeat because they want to listen to what he is saying for this essay so they want to know what he is talking about and they might end their conflict with the whites and blacks once he finishes his speech.
In “Battle Royal”, equality is discussed for the whites and the blacks and why they are in an opposite relationship with each other. The analysis says that the blacks and whites need to be in a fair relationship. Equality should matter because this short story explains why the blacks and whites should be equal with one another and the blacks are wanting to stop being threatened by the whites.
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