Ralph Ellison\'s \" Battle Royal,\" and Flannery

¶ … Ralph Ellison's " Battle Royal," and Flannery O'Connor's " Revelation."

Specifically, it will look at the prejudices of some of the characters in both stories. One protagonist faces blind, hateful prejudice in "Battle Royal," and the other perpetrates it in "Revelation." Prejudice is ugly, and each story presents it as horribly as possible, to get that message across to the reader.

PREJUDICE IN TWO SHORT STORIES

Battle Royal" by Ralph Ellison is the first chapter of his legendary book "The Invisible Man." This Prologue to the story introduces us to the protagonist, and graphically illustrates the prejudices Black people faced (and still face) in the South after the Civil War. I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time been ashamed" (Ellison).

The main character of "Battle Royal" is a young black man, who undergoes violent "hazing" to win a scholarship to a Black university. He must fight other boys blindfolded in a ring, and then, the drunken "upstanding men of the community" give the boys their reward, useless golden tokens spread out on an electrified rug. "A hot, violent force tore through my body, shaking me like a wet rat. The rug was electrified. The hair bristled up on my head as I shook myself free" (Ellison). Not only is it humiliating, it is stark hatred and prejudice in the form of "philanthropy."

The protagonist submits to the torture of the grown men because that is what he has been taught to do, submit to the white man, even taught by learned men such as Booker T. Washington. "Mr. Washington represents in Negro thought the old attitude of adjustment and submission..." (Du Bois). He even likens himself to Washington at the beginning of the story.

And besides, I suspected that fighting a battle royal might detract from the dignity of my speech. In those pre-invisible days I visualized myself as a potential Booker T. Washington" (Ellison).

Ellison's graphic portrayal of prejudice and evil is unsettling and extremely disturbing. While intellectually the reader might know things like this occurred in the South, it is difficult to picture, and even more difficult to see the reaction of the boys. They were terrified, and rightly so. They were treated worse than animals - as if they had no feelings.

By opening his book with this vivid depiction, Ellison sets the stage for his character's transformation, and with a bit of luck, the transformation of any prejudices the reader may have. To recognize evil for what it is can be the beginning of transformation, and clearly, Ellison is hoping for a transformation of prejudicial beliefs for the reader of this novel.

O'Connor's "Revelation" argues against prejudice just as effectively as "Battle Royal," but uses a completely different technique. The protagonist in this story, Ruby Turpin, is the epitome of hate and prejudice. She has each race neatly compartmentalized in her "Christian" head, and thinks her family is better than they all are, even though they raise smelly pigs and smell just like them. "Usually by the time she had fallen asleep all the classes of people were moiling and roiling around in her head, and she would dream they were all crammed in together in a box car, being ridden off to be put in a gas oven" (O'Connor).

When one of the other characters can no longer stand her bigotry and prejudice, she attacks her, and tells her, "Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog'" (O'Connor).

O'Connor uses this literary method to introduce a character who will so interest and yet repel the reader that the underlying message cannot help but be understood and acted upon. "He will be interested in characters who are forced out to meet evil and grace and who act on a trust beyond themselves - whether they know very clearly what it is they act upon or not" (....).

Turpin seems to have a revelation at the end of the story, and the reader is left hoping the woman sees the error of her ways, and God has granted her a more open and loving heart. O'Connor never says what happens, leaving it to the reader's own devices. This too is a plea, a plea for the reader to look in their own heart, and look at what prejudices hide there.

Both authors clearly abhor the evil of prejudice, and want their readers to think hard about it. They both portray prejudice graphically, from the Southern "gentlemen" who torture the young boys for their own amusement, to the loud-mouthed woman who makes her prejudices clear to anyone who will listen. These characters are not sympathetic, and the authors have made sure the reader can do nothing but hate them, almost as much as they hate Blacks. They are the worst sorts of white - self-important and convinced of their own self-righteousness.