The significant role of gender in this essay portrays and highlights Ellison's views of white male racial psychology. Ellison's short story essentially establishes that Caucasian males treat and recognize African American males in roughly the same way males characteristically view and treat females under patriarchy. When reading the short story, I noticed a significant similarity between how the men in the ball room reacted to the white female dancing and the black kids fighting in the ring, they both served as a form of spectacle to the men. In the story the narrator states, “ I noticed a certain merchant who followed her hungrily, his lips loose and drooling.” He then adds, “This creature was completely hypnotized” (Ellison). The narrator
