“Battle Royal” was published in 1947 by Ralph Ellison as the first chapter of his only published novel the Invisible Man (1952). The story begins with the protagonist’s drawn-out struggle for an adult identity in the corrupt world that was filled with racial prejudice at the time. Although this story was written many years ago it can also relate to many things going on today such as racism and social standards.
Ellison states throughout the story that he was constantly trying to figure out who he was and search for something to do with his life in order to be successful. African Americans at the time did not get the equal rights as white Americans did, and this sort of prejudice was a huge factor continuously towards Ellison’s speech. Ellison’s
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The amount of detail and visualization on how he described getting punched and knocked down every time left me speechless. At that moment of the story, I the reader, was able to capture the true strength that Ellison had within himself. He was able to get knocked down by the other African American men that were in the ring with him, but he kept on fighting and was able to get back on his feet without giving up. The fighting in the ring was a perfect example of being able to see the social standards of African Americans. The match was being run by a vast amount of wealthy white townsmen that were drunk and certainly selfish and inhumane. Additionally, only looking for their own entertainment of watching these young African American men fight each other, and then chase after their “prize money” at the end of the fight. Ellison made it clear that his goal was to give his speech at the end of the fight and that’s exactly what he did. This was not only very powerful to me, but also riveting after experiencing so much violence as he did. He was able to prove that he had enough courage and strength to be able to express his feeling and words to the townsmen after such a violent moment. Once Ellison was announced on stage to deliver his speech the white men were acting extremely obnoxious and continuously interrupted him stating, “Louder! Louder!” (Ellison 233) as if they could not hear him. Ellison made an accidental statement about social equality during the mid-section of his speech and that seemed to anger the crowd greatly. Social equality is the term referring to the standards of how people should be treated equally no matter was their color on their skin was; however, this was a topic that African Americans were not supposed to speak about considering the state of how to the crowd reacted. If African