Ralph Ellison's Battle Royale Ralph

RALPH ELLISON'S BATTLE ROYALE Ralph Ellison's Battle Royal (1952) is a story about mid-20th century racism and the initiation of his protagonist whose experiences in connection with his involvement in the dehumanizing spectacle called the "Battle Royale" prompts his eventual acceptance of the fact that realization that he is invisible to white American society. As he expresses in his words, "I am nobody but myself.

But first I had to discover that I am an invisible man!" Ellison's protagonist is a black teenager who is the valedictorian of his high school class. On the same night that he is scheduled to deliver his valedictorian address, he also participates in a ritual of degradation in which young black men are blindfolded and paid to fight one another in a large group in front of an audience of white men, most of whom are community leaders in their society.

During the fight, Ellison's protagonist (who is never named, in keeping with the theme of invisibility), discovers the true meaning of words that his grandfather had spoken on his deathbed. Previously, those words had frightened him but during the fight, they become meaningful to him as a defining strategy for winning both the fight in the ring as well as the lifelong fight for success in a white world committed to denying his success.

The primary external conflict in Ellison's story is the continual fight of black Americans against oppression in white society. The traditional fight that is a fixture in the community is a form of institutional oppression created by white men and designed to degrade black men. It is also likely a metaphorical reference to the fact that for a full century after the Civil War ended slavery, white society in southern states still purposely instigated antagonism among the oppressed races as means of maintaining their collective subjugation.

The primary internal conflict is the fear with which the protagonist had always recalled his grandfather's dying words, "Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy's country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion's mouth.

I want you to overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree 'em to death and destruction, let 'em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open." During the fight, the protagonist's blindfold slips just enough for him to see the other fighters.

"Pushed this way and that by the legs milling around me, I finally pulled erect and discovered that I could see the black, sweat- washed forms weaving in the smoky, blue atmosphere like drunken dancers weaving to the rapid drum-like thuds of blows." He instantly recognizes the importance of not letting it slip so much that his tactical advantage (of sight) becomes apparent to the audience. In that instant, he also recognizes.