The short story that I decided to analyze is Ralph Ellison’s Battle Royal. This short story to me implied how in essence, we are not so different from our (black people) slave ancestors. A quote in the story where he says, “I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time been ashamed.” This quote epitomized the whole short story for me. It displayed how different the invisible man point of view was from when he was narrating the story and from the beginning of the story. Ralph Ellison entrancingly showed how sometimes lack of self-respect can inherently increases one chances of success if you are a Black person and somehow that very success can falsely allow them to laud oneself.
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With this eagerness to validate himself to white people, he allowed himself to be humiliated by them. Typically, Black people, who are ashamed of their slave ancestors because they see them as weak, allow themselves to blame their forefathers and foremothers for their own lifelong status of being slaves. Slaves were humiliated, dominated, and keen to “mastah” demands to save themselves. Easy to think that in the same position that you wouldn’t allow that to happen to you, yet is that not what the invisible man allowing to happen to him. Hindsight can sometimes breed ignorance of the present. He thought since he was notice by white people that he was different. A feeling that his fellow Black schoolmates resented, yet again were they any different. He wanted to be an “Exceptional Negro” (model Black person/token Black person) and be accepted by white people, and they were fighting for the entertainment of white people at their own expense. They were all exhibiting the things they were ashamed about in regards to being descendants of …show more content…
It showed how Black people that are successful and those who are not successful grapple with the realization of being Black. This short story amazingly showed how a Black person must navigate through society to get ahead. You are never too sure of your decisions because some level of internalization may have coerced those decisions. Clearly, the invisible man expressed some self-loathing attitudes in order to gain access to white people which many Black people equate to opportunity. This short story paints a vivid picture of trying to fit in at one demise. Though one might suggest that he is “winning” because of what he have gained, yet they fail to see what he had lost. Through his acquisition of opportunity, he forfeited his dignity, and most of all he forfeited
With this eagerness to validate himself to white people, he allowed himself to be humiliated by them. Typically, Black people, who are ashamed of their slave ancestors because they see them as weak, allow themselves to blame their forefathers and foremothers for their own lifelong status of being slaves. Slaves were humiliated, dominated, and keen to “mastah” demands to save themselves. Easy to think that in the same position that you wouldn’t allow that to happen to you, yet is that not what the invisible man allowing to happen to him. Hindsight can sometimes breed ignorance of the present. He thought since he was notice by white people that he was different. A feeling that his fellow Black schoolmates resented, yet again were they any different. He wanted to be an “Exceptional Negro” (model Black person/token Black person) and be accepted by white people, and they were fighting for the entertainment of white people at their own expense. They were all exhibiting the things they were ashamed about in regards to being descendants of …show more content…
It showed how Black people that are successful and those who are not successful grapple with the realization of being Black. This short story amazingly showed how a Black person must navigate through society to get ahead. You are never too sure of your decisions because some level of internalization may have coerced those decisions. Clearly, the invisible man expressed some self-loathing attitudes in order to gain access to white people which many Black people equate to opportunity. This short story paints a vivid picture of trying to fit in at one demise. Though one might suggest that he is “winning” because of what he have gained, yet they fail to see what he had lost. Through his acquisition of opportunity, he forfeited his dignity, and most of all he forfeited