Battle Royal
"Battle Royal," by Ralph Ellison was a very difficult piece of literature for me to understand. As a little background information, Ellison was very much into music (228). He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on March 1, 1914 (221). Different themes are presented throughout this short story, which reflect different views that Ellison had at the time that he wrote this essay. One boy is invited to speak at local men's club where he will deliver his graduation speech. As I go on, I will discuss the nature of the short story and how it affected me. The narrator's view of this entire situation at the men's club is kind of humiliating which will later set the stage for events that will happen in his future. Black people are viewed different in this time period and the narrator does not understand near the end of the story. The narrator looks up to his grandfather. He told the narrator's father to keep up the fight. The father then tells the narrator what the grandfather told him. This was just being passed down through the different generations. This to me shows the loving relationship that the grandson and the grandfather share. Near the end of the story however, his grandfather's presence scares him
" The men at the "smoker" enjoy this form of entertainment with their drinks and cigars. This group of "town's officials" turned out to be the local men's club. At that time, they could have cared less what the narrator had to say. Whoever got it first got to keep it. He dreamed about what his grandfather had said earlier. This was not the case for some other men. After the speech was over, the man over the "men's club" came up and praised him. Being black in this time period was very difficult for the narrator because he wasn't looked upon as much as the white people his same age. It paid off because one of the white men gave him a brief case with a document inside of it. Of course some had to be perverse in some way or fashion. The family being black had a harder time growing up than the more wealthy white folks did.
Common topics in this essay:
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Battle Royal,
Mack Warren,
College Negroes,
Ralph Ellison,
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Royal Ralph,
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local men's club,
grandfather told,
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black period,
white people,
helped determine,
royal ralph,
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Acceptance Essays
