Bingo Game Thesis

Akansha Pathak Professor Ephraim EN 1251 March 25th, 2024 Exploring Thematic Element of Exclusion within King of the Bingo Game During the Great Migration, millions of black Americans in the south relocated to northern areas of America in a mass movement to escape racial segregation and economic hardship. However, their situation is still far from ideal. As black Americans settled in the north, they still grappled with the dehumanizing effects of racial discrimination, poverty, and perpetual societal alienation. A poignant short story “King of the Bingo Game” by Ralph Ellison, highlights these historical adversities through an unnamed main character’s quest to explore his identity and dignity, amidst the societal exclusion and economic hardship

This is truly really good!”(Ellison 58). At that moment, he had truly become the king of the bingo game. His refusal to let go of the button further instated that he does not want to relinquish the opportunity of winning, as he now held the button previously held by a white man in power. There was finally hope in that split second that he too, a black man, could be included in the relentless game of opportunity. Finally, the reader observes that even though his spin lands on a double zero in the end, his opportunity to win any money is stripped by policemen restraining him off the stage. The protagonist in the story felt he would finally win; however, “he did not see the man's slow wink, he only felt the dull pain exploding in his skill. his luck had run out on stage”(Ellison 61). Clearly, the painful irony that exists here is that although the bingo king feels like he is defying his standing as a nameless member of society, he still succumbs to the powers of the men in uniforms in the end; In other words, he was only deluded by artificial senses of control and enlightenment that were never there to begin