Henry Mills
Engl M01B - Kaye
Essay #2 - Research Paper
Human Circus Animals In Liz Brent's Critical Essay on "The Invisible Man; or Battle Royal" she tells the story of group of a high school students that are about to graduate and go off to college. The story is called “Battle Royal” and was published in 1947. This story is about a group of African American students who are forced to fight each other for the entertainment of the white people. While the black students are fighting, a white naked blond woman enters. As Brent states, “This is an especially intimidating situation for these young African-American men, because they have been strictly taught by a racist southern culture not to regard white women in a sexual way." At the end …show more content…
Brent argues, that there is a lot of war imagery within this story. “This war motif is most strongly asserted through the dying words of the narrator's grandfather, who tells his son that "after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight. 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 back in the Reconstruction." Racial relations in the United States, even after the end of the Civil War, and the era of Reconstruction, are described by the grandfather as an ongoing "war," and the struggle of African Americans to gain equality is referred to as "the good fight." The grandfather describes himself as a "traitor" to white people; he was "a spy in the enemy's country" in that he posed among white people ("the enemy's country") as the type of humble, subservient black man they wanted him to be, while secretly harboring rebellious ideas.” As Brent stated in the quote, much war talk is used to compare what is happing in the story to a real …show more content…
In “Battle Royal” the blacks were not given a choice for their actions. Not to mention they were fighting for a limited prize. Although the narrator tried to get the others to stop fighting each other he could not do it. He failed in same way the black community tries to stop black on black violence but never get to far. Another aspect of this story Brent seems to overlook is in this book whites only wanted to see the blacks as clown’s thugs or gladiators. The whites wanted to have entertainment so they used the blacks as a way of entertainment. This is still true today as some of the most famous black people in our society today are athletes, comedians or gangster rappers. Even some of the most intelligent black people in our society get thrown into the group of blacks who don’t contribute as much to society as they can. An example of one of these people is Barack
Engl M01B - Kaye
Essay #2 - Research Paper
Human Circus Animals In Liz Brent's Critical Essay on "The Invisible Man; or Battle Royal" she tells the story of group of a high school students that are about to graduate and go off to college. The story is called “Battle Royal” and was published in 1947. This story is about a group of African American students who are forced to fight each other for the entertainment of the white people. While the black students are fighting, a white naked blond woman enters. As Brent states, “This is an especially intimidating situation for these young African-American men, because they have been strictly taught by a racist southern culture not to regard white women in a sexual way." At the end …show more content…
Brent argues, that there is a lot of war imagery within this story. “This war motif is most strongly asserted through the dying words of the narrator's grandfather, who tells his son that "after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight. 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 back in the Reconstruction." Racial relations in the United States, even after the end of the Civil War, and the era of Reconstruction, are described by the grandfather as an ongoing "war," and the struggle of African Americans to gain equality is referred to as "the good fight." The grandfather describes himself as a "traitor" to white people; he was "a spy in the enemy's country" in that he posed among white people ("the enemy's country") as the type of humble, subservient black man they wanted him to be, while secretly harboring rebellious ideas.” As Brent stated in the quote, much war talk is used to compare what is happing in the story to a real …show more content…
In “Battle Royal” the blacks were not given a choice for their actions. Not to mention they were fighting for a limited prize. Although the narrator tried to get the others to stop fighting each other he could not do it. He failed in same way the black community tries to stop black on black violence but never get to far. Another aspect of this story Brent seems to overlook is in this book whites only wanted to see the blacks as clown’s thugs or gladiators. The whites wanted to have entertainment so they used the blacks as a way of entertainment. This is still true today as some of the most famous black people in our society today are athletes, comedians or gangster rappers. Even some of the most intelligent black people in our society get thrown into the group of blacks who don’t contribute as much to society as they can. An example of one of these people is Barack