Battle Royal

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...

In "Battle Royal," the fight and the struggle on the electric rug both symbolize the power white people hold over Black people in society and the difficulties they subject Black people to. In...

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...

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...

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...

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...

In "Battle Royal," the protagonist says that his grandfather had been a meek and submissive man all his life, always appearing to accept the supremacy of white people and to be eager to please...

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 “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...

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...

One might argue that the central conflict in Ralph Ellison's "Battle Royal" (the first chapter of Invisible Man) is actually an internal conflict within the narrator. Indeed, there is plenty of...

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...

“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...

The narrator of "Battle Royal" says he is invisible because he is seen as a race or a skin color, not as himself or as a unique individual. Before the battle royal, the narrator describes himself...

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 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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

In "Battle Royal," the narrator, a recent high school graduate, thinks he is being honored when he is invited to a fine hotel in town to give a speech to leading white citizens. He is surprised...

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...

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 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,...

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 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...

At the end of "Battle Royal," the narrator dreams that he is at a circus with his grandfather, watching the clowns. The grandfather refuses to laugh at them, because they are a metaphor for Black...

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...

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...

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 protagonist's expectations are similar to the American Dream in that he thinks that if he strives hard, he will ultimately succeed. However, that turns out not to be the case. The evening's...

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...

In 1947, "Battle Royal" was first published as a stand-alone short story. The dating is significant. World War II had ended just two years before, and the world was able to turn its focus to 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...

"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...

Initially, the crowd of white men, many of whom are the worst for wear, pay not the slightest attention to the narrator as he delivers his high school graduation speech. They're not there to listen...

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...

“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...

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...

The main setting of "Battle Royal" is in an unnamed Southern town, in the "main ballroom of a leading hotel." All the prominent white citizens of the town are there, and the room has been fitted...

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...

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...

Both Ralph Ellison's "Battle Royal" and William Faulkner's "Barn Burning" are fantastic short stories; however, neither story is a story that I would describe as a "fun read." Both stories are...

"Battle Royal" shows the "big shots," the leading white male citizens of the Southern town in which the story takes place, amusing themselves in the main ballroom of the town's grandest hotel....