The narrator of Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, is stopped before he is able to give a speech, and is put into a boxing ring, where he is made to fight. After a harrowing experience in the ring he makes the paradoxical statement, “Looking up front, I saw attendants in white jackets rolling the portable ring away and placing a small square rug in the vacant space surrounded by chairs. Perhaps, I thought, I will stand on the rug to deliver my speech” (Ellison 26). This device is used in this excerpt to highlight the naiveté of the narrator, as his only concern, after the suffering he experienced in the boxing ring, is to be able to give his speech. He does not focus on the insulting and degrading acts he is being made to do, but hopes only to
