Battle Royal - a Short Story by Ralph Ellison

Chris Faulkner

Instructor Carreras

Wrt 102

2-24-06

“Battle Royal”, a short story by Ralph Ellison, written in 1952. It is a story about a young black man, who has recently graduated high school. He lives in the south and is invited to give a speech at a gathering of the towns leading white citizens. Where he was told to take part in a battle royal, with nine other black men. After the fight and the speech he was awarded with a calfskin brief case and a scholarship to the state college for Negros.

On his grandfather’s deathbed, his grandfather told his father to “keep up the good fight”. “Our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days”, “live with your head in the lions mouth”. His parents tell him to forget what his grandfather said. This really gets to him; he does not know what to do. His grandfather sees life differently then he and his parents do. He does not understand his grandfather’s words. He thinks his grandfather’s words are a curse. He goes to the smoker to deliverer his speech, in hopes to win to win approval from the affluent men in town and a possibility to open doors for his future.

At the smoker, where some of the most important men in town are “quite tipsy”, belligerent and out of control. When he gets in the ballroom there is a naked girl dancing. He wants her and at the same time wants her to go away, “to caress her and destroy her”. The black boys who were to take part in the battle were humiliated, some passed out, others pleaded to go home. But the white men paid no attention. The white men end up attacking the girl, who is described as having the same terror and fear in her eyes as the black boys.

Once the girl escapes the black boys get in the boxing ring and are blindfolded for the battle royal. When the fight starts he stumbles around the ring like a drunken baby. He is bleeding from the nose and mouth, and cannot tell if his body is covered in blood or sweat. The room is filled with cigar smoke and angry drunk men yelling at the black boys to hurt each other. This sounds like a true nightmare, he cannot hear, see, or smell. To make things worse nine other guys are punching him at random. It is complete anarchy. He understands his grandfathers word “ our world is a war” these white men have no regard for the feelings or emotions of these young blacks men. These young men must fight this war if they are ever to leave this battlefield. The hard lesson to learn here is that each man has to fight his own battle, concur his own hill. We all have our strength and talents that we use to elevate our social positions. We just have to figure out what it is and fine tune in it in order to achieve our objective.

He is one of the last two left in the ring, which means, the other guy and him have to fight each other for the championship. He did not want to fight in the first place, if he knew he could have quit in the first fight he would have. Now he is fighting one of the biggest guys there. He try’s to reason with the other guy, “Fake like I knocked you out, you can have the prize”. He even try’s to pay his opponent, with no luck, only making his opponent gets anger. What could have been his only alie is his biggest obstacle. He is distracted during the fight thinking about the speech, because, that is where his strength is and he really wants to do a great job. We see the young man focused on his strength and developing a plan. He knows he cannot fight and doesn’t want to fight, but he can and does want to address the white men with his speech. During the fight all he can think about is giving his speech. He thinks the men who are making him fight are the one’s who can truly judge his intellect. This is where he will get his validation, the honor that will really matter to him.

After he looses the fight, the with men make all the black boys pick their