Ralph Ellison Questions and Answers
Ralph Ellison
What is the meaning of this quote? How does it apply to society today? "Life is to be lived, not controlled; and...
The lines quoted are from the epilogue of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. The title character is trying to sort out the meaning of his experience of invisibility and of “hibernation,” when he cut...
Ralph Ellison
What is the theme, setting, and plot in "A Party Down at the Square" by Ralph Ellison?
The setting of this story is actually a small town's main square, "right in front of the court house," in the middle of the night, just as the "old clock in the tower was striking twelve." The...
Ralph Ellison
In what ways and with what effects does Ralph Ellison present the concept of racism in short story "The Black Ball"?
Ralph Ellison presents the concept of racism through its effects on a Black man, his four-year-old son, and a white union organizer. The story is told through the eyes of a Black janitor and single...
Ralph Ellison
What is the conflict, moment of crisis, and peripety in Ralph Ellison's "A Party Down at the Square"?
The conflict in Ralph Ellison's "A Party Does at the Square" takes the form of the boy character's internal feelings about witnessing the burning of a black man. The narrator (the boy) frames the...
Ralph Ellison
Who are the main characters in the story "A Party Down at the Square"?
This story by Ralph Ellison is told in the first person by an unnamed narrator, who recounts experiences he had as a northern boy visiting relatives in the south. The other main character is his...
Ralph Ellison
The dehumanization inherent in "A Party Down at the Square" by Ralph Ellison affects the interpretation of the story....
The short story "A Party Down at the Square" by Ralph Ellison is narrated by a white boy from Cincinnati. On a dark, cold, rainy night he accompanies his uncle down to the town square to watch the...
Ralph Ellison
Compare and contrast Ralph Ellison's view of the South with William Faulkner's from "A Rose for Emily".
Ellison's overriding opinion about the South, or any region, relates to identities and is that our identities are not a result of "geography," meaning not the result of pressures from our...
Ralph Ellison
Do the crowd and the narrator have the same views of the events in "A Party Down at the Square" by Ralph Ellison?
“A Party Down at the Square” took place in the south in the middle of the twentieth century. Ralph Ellison described a scene in a small town that happened too frequently in the south. The...
Ralph Ellison
What literary elements (plot, setting, POV, etc.) did Ralph Ellison use to provoke empathy in “Battle Royal”?
Point of view is the chief literary element Ellison uses to build empathy. It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of point of view in a story. Whoever's eyes we see the story through...
Ralph Ellison
What is Ralph Ellison's assessment of the South?
While we can't know if Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man perfectly encapsulates the author's views, his assessment of the South in this novel appears extensively bleak. His deeply critical depiction of...
Ralph Ellison
Discuss the role of improvisation in "Invisible Man"
Having discovered that he is invisible to the white world after repeated attempts to have his own reality acknowledged, Ellison's narrator retreats beneath the streets of New York. There he notes...
Ralph Ellison
What is the meaning of "square" in the essay?
The work to which I think you're referring is not an essay, but a short story told from the point of view of a white man watching the lynching and public burning of a black man in a public town...