Battle Royal", a short story by Ralph Ellison, was written in 1952. It is a story about a young black man, the narrator, who recently graduated high school. The narrator is from the south and is given the opportunity to give a speech at a gathering of the towns head white citizens to get ahead in a largely white society. He tries to accomplish this goal after listening to what his grandfather told him just before he died. On his grandfather 's deathbed, his grandfather told his father to "keep up the good fight". "Our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days” (). Overall, his grandfather was telling him to accept the white people’s way of life in order to get ahead. His parents tell him to forget what his grandfather said.
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Every time one of them put their hands on the coins, they received an electric shock. The symbolism behind this is showing how blacks struggled economically. The only way African Americans could make a lot of money was though pain and y becoming a “puppet on a string” for the white people. Every time an African American got a foot on the stair of life they would always get knocked down and out of the door. Great examples are people like Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Frederick …show more content…
The narrator in Ellison’s short story does indeed suffers a great deal. The horrific treatment that he deals with in order to perform his task is symbolic. It represents the many hardships that African Americans had to deal with back then. Blacks had to adhere to white society, and where led to believe that if they obeyed, they would fit in. Any blacks that tried to stand up for their rights were generally killed by anti-hate groups or the Ku Klux Klan. The young black man in the story didn’t fit in no more than he did at the end of his speech. It took a 100 years for blacks to gain civil rights or to gain social equality. It’s because of the persistence and endurance blacks had during the time that allows us to be free
Every time one of them put their hands on the coins, they received an electric shock. The symbolism behind this is showing how blacks struggled economically. The only way African Americans could make a lot of money was though pain and y becoming a “puppet on a string” for the white people. Every time an African American got a foot on the stair of life they would always get knocked down and out of the door. Great examples are people like Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Frederick …show more content…
The narrator in Ellison’s short story does indeed suffers a great deal. The horrific treatment that he deals with in order to perform his task is symbolic. It represents the many hardships that African Americans had to deal with back then. Blacks had to adhere to white society, and where led to believe that if they obeyed, they would fit in. Any blacks that tried to stand up for their rights were generally killed by anti-hate groups or the Ku Klux Klan. The young black man in the story didn’t fit in no more than he did at the end of his speech. It took a 100 years for blacks to gain civil rights or to gain social equality. It’s because of the persistence and endurance blacks had during the time that allows us to be free