Battle Royal

"Battle Royal" is part of Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man in which Ellison likens being black to being invisible to white race. There are several themes running through this short story, but...

The "magnificent blonde" with the yellow hair of a kewpie doll" is simultaneously a symbol of the oppression of the young black men in the group—she becomes the tool of their sexual humiliation and...

The white audience, which has been mocking the black narrator during his speech by having him repeat the word "responsibility" over and over, falls ominously silent when he replaces...

Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal” is the first chapter of The Invisible Man. It tells the story of an African American teenager who is pitted against other young men in a blind “battle royal” for the...

The dancer has an American flag tattooed on her belly. She represents the white America the black young men are forbidden to look at or aspire to. The young men are afraid to look at her because...

Because Ellison's Invisible Man, from which "Battle Royal" is taken, offers a complex and nearly comprehensive indictment of racism in early twentieth-century America, multiple thesis statements...

The opening battle in the novel The Invisible Man is extremely significant, as it sets up the thematic setting of the rest of the story. The main character is persecuted, punished, and oppressed in...

The significance of these names is open to interpretation. Both are mentioned in the Battle Royal scene in the novel's first chapter, which is sometimes extracted from Invisible Man and read as a...

The central conflict in "Battle Royal" is of the character versus society variety: the narrator conflicts with the white society that demeans and oppresses him. First, he is invited to give his...

One instance of irony is that the white men believe they've put narrator in a position beneath them because he's inferior to them; in reality, he's using their prejudiced beliefs to rise higher...

“Battle Royal,” published as a short story and then as the first chapter in The Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison presents the main character, the unnamed young, black narrator. The story takes place...

In "Battle Royal," the American Dream is presented as an almighty sham, something that only white people can ever attain. Initially, the unnamed narrator is naive; he thinks, that, he too has a...

The “Battle Royal” episode of Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man can be examined in terms of such literary techniques as irony, tone, and diction and also with regard to the theme of the influence...

In "Battle Royal," the battle is an entertainment the young black men, who thought they came to be honored for their high school achievements, have to provide for the white business leaders, called...

The first chapter of The Invisible Manby Ralph Ellison presents symbolically what the narrator learns throughout the novel: The black man has been exploited and continues to be "invisible" as a...

The protagonist in "Battle Royal" is the narrator. The other nine African-American youth do not "care too much" for him and are, therefore, not pleased that he will be at the fight, so they feel...

The story opens with the narrator remembering his grandfather’s death. At the end of the story, he wonders if the dream is prophetic. The narrator reflects on how his grandparents were lied to...

The hero's journey is a pattern commonly found in narratives throughout history involving the hero—the main character the story follows—and his or her growth as a character through a series of...

In Battle Royal, blindness is used as a symbol of how those subjected to racial oppression are often not fully aware of just how much society discriminates against them. The boys forced to...

The blonde, who has a tattoo of the American flag on her lower belly, represents the way in which white women have been used as sexual objects and how their status as both sexual objects and...

“Battle Royal” is the first chapter of the acclaimed novel The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. The narrator, now a 40 year old man, looks back at his high school graduation speech that was given to...

The narrator is at first quite honored to find that the superintendent of schools is among the men at the gathering in the hotel. Then when the white men's behavior becomes rude and offensive...

Feel free to explore your own thoughts on this answer, as the narrator doesn't give a definitive explanation about the significance of the smoke. It should be somewhat clear to readers that the...

The narrator, along with the other African-American boys, is forced to perform a variety of degrading and humiliating tasks for the entertainment of a baying crowd of drunken white men. As well as...

Ralph Ellison's short story Battle Royal is a serious indictment of those who sought to play 'the white man's game' in the misguided belief that such conduct would somehow ingratiate...

The opening chapter of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, “Battle Royal,” is told from a first-person narrative point of view, from the unnamed narrator’s perspective. Among other things, this means...

The grandfather's final words to the story's narrator tell the narrator that his grandfather has been at war his entire life. The grandfather also wants his grandson to know that the war is...

The significance of the dancer is two-fold. First, she serves as a way to make the boys in the ring even more uncomfortable than they already are. The white men have designed an event to make all...

Blindness is a complicated motif in this story. On the simplest level, blindness regarding society is what black people experience in white society. We are shown a world in which white people...

The narrator and the other black boys involved are lured to the site of the Battle with other bait--for instance, the narrator has been told he is there to read his essay/speech which is deemed the...

“Battle Royal” is the title to chapter one of Ralph Ellison’s book Invisible Man. It is possible to identify the climax to this chapter using a standard plot chart. Let’s start by listing some of...

William Faulkner's short story "A Rose for Emily" and Ralph Ellison's "Battle Royal," a chapter from his novel Invisible Man that is also sometimes excerpted as a short story in literary...

Ralph Ellison's initiation story "The Battle Royal" is the first chapter in his novel Invisible Man. The unnamed narrator and other black young men in "The Battle Royal" fight blindfolded in front...

The narrator's grandfather had been a slave, and after the emancipation he had lived what looked to be a peaceful life. However, on his deathbed he tells the narrator's father that "'our life is a...

I'm not sure how tightly you have to relate your analysis to racism. Racism is a form of discrimination, and sexism is also a form of discrimination. The two do relate in that aspect. You could do...

"Battle Royal" is chapter one of Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man. Many of the themes that run throughout the book are present in chapter one. The two themes that I will discuss from this...

A compare and contrast topic sentence for these two stories might look at a theme the two stories share (comparison) and then make a claim about how this theme is handled differently in each story...

The action in Ellison's Battle Royal is framed by references to the boy's grandfather, who early on is quoted as telling his own son to infiltrate the white world and to defeat it with agreement,...

I would respond to this story by saying it shows the evils of racism. The narrator is a high school graduate who has won a scholarship to a state college for blacks. He is invited, along with other...

One small event that explains certain aspects of the time before civil rights movement is the fact the narrator and the other nine young men who are to take part in the boxing battle are crowded...

You'll find a helpful answer at the following link: http://www.enotes.com/battle-royal-ralph-ellison/q-and-a/battle-royal-how-can-you-interpret-last-words-291443

An archetype is a model that other similar things emulate and/or try to copy. While not every initiation story fits a perfect mold, they often have several similarities. One example is that most...

There are likely a couple of symbolic images that a reader could pull from this story. One of the most visceral images is the naked white woman that is made to dance seductively before the rich,...

Plot is a principle of Formalist criticism (and later Structuralist criticism) and identifies the movement underlying action. Plot is considered by Formalist theory to be different from story,...

Ellison does not mention the narrator's exact age, but he does say that he has just graduated and has won a scholarship to attend the State College for Negros. Therefore, the narrator is probably...

“Battle Royal” is rife with symbolism and allusion, especially through the section of the story that depicts the degradation of the narrator and other young African American men. The naked white...

While both Ellison's "Battle Royal" (Chapter 1 of Invisible Man) and Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" deal in some capacity with the racism of the American South in the early-to-mid-20th century, the...

In this story, there are several things that the narrator is ashamed of. He is ashamed and embarrassed of the way white men in his area treat him and other young Black men. His own family’s history...

The writing style of Ellison's story "Battle Royal" (from the novel Invisible Man) is one of the frame story. The narrator is telling about the advice his grandfather gave to his father (the...

Part of the message, as I take it, is that the boys in the fight are desperate and terrified. Their relationship to the society they live in is, essentially, one of abuse. These boys are so needy...