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King of the Bingo Game | Introduction

Ralph Ellison's "King of the Bingo Game" was first published in the literary journal Tomorrow in November, 1944. The story is customarily examined as a prototype for Ellison's novel, Invisible Man, but the work was intended to stand on its own. The theme of alienation has been treated by many authors, but in ''King of the Bingo Game," Ellison examines the specific alienation felt by blacks in the United States. The protagonist of the story, the Bingo King, is alone in the world and his isolation is further highlighted by the potential death of his wife, Laura, who is seriously ill.

Structurally, the story is complex, combining harsh realism with a dreamy surrealism in a way that approximates the mind of the Bingo King. The story also provides an interesting examination of a segment of the American population often ignored: the working-class blacks of the day who were new to urban life. The Bingo King is not an idealized character; Ellison gives him characteristics such as a backwoods cluelessness and inner yearnings he has trouble understanding and articulating. The story's conflict centers around one of the oldest themes in literature: a person's helplessness before the hand of fate and the individual's irrepressible desire to overcome that helplessness. In "King of the Bingo Game" Ellison provides an examination of this relationship with fate, and more specifically, a black man's confrontation with fate.

King of the Bingo Game Summary

"King of the Bingo Game" opens with a man sitting in a movie theater watching a movie he has already seen. He is hungry, and he can smell the peanuts that the woman in front of him is eating. Readers are able to access his thoughts as he envisions being in the South where he could ask the woman for a peanut and she would give him one. He also thinks the same thing about a pair of men who are on his right, drinking wine. He is broke and his wife, Laura, is sick and dying, Watching the movie, he thinks about how the characters in the movie are able to escape their predicaments, but he is not. He also thinks of what would happen if the woman in the movie were to take off her clothes.

He falls asleep and dreams that he is back in the South, where he lived when he was a boy. He dreams that a train is bearing down on him. Although he jumps off the tracks, the train follows him onto the highway and down the street. He wakes up screaming, and an old man next to him gives him a drink of whiskey. As the movie ends, a bingo game begins. The protagonist has brought five cards with him; he worries that the bingo-caller would not like this if he knew, but he needs to get money for a doctor for his wife... » Complete King of the Bingo Game Summary