Summary Of Battle Royal, By Ralph Ellison

Battle Royal is a chapter in a book called Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, it is a book that symbolically shows what African Americans went through in the 20th century. The story was also published at the cusp of the Civil Rights Movement, “Invisible Man was published in 1952 at the dawn of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, two years before the Supreme Court struck down segregation in public schools, three years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on an Alabama bus” (Anelli). Battle Royal is also narrated by a Black man who is nominated to give a speech in front of White men, but before he does, he must goes through a few trials—with other Black men—created by some White men. The main goal of the trials are for the Black men to obtain money and a scholarship by blindly fighting against each other. Though it is a sad read, Battle Royal vividly shows the …show more content…
Though the narrator went through many trials he never gave up, he kept his eye on his goal which was to say the speech he was asked to deliver. I feel, the speech is the African American way of longing for equality; African Americans wanted to be seen as equals to White men by being able to speak up. The fact that he kept his mind on the speech, no matter the trials he went to, implies that no matter what the Black men went through, they had their mind on the idea of being equal with the opposing race. In the end, Battle Royal portrays a lot of symbolism on what the Black men went through and how a lot of people viewed them in the United States. The story also shows how Black men were convinced that if they listened to what the White men said, they were eventually fit in and possibly be rewarded; even though the story shows that no matter what they did, they would always be two steps behind their goal of being