Ralph Ellison Use Of Power In Battle Royal

Jonathan Tunnell
3/11/15
Essay #1 – Short Fiction

A Battle Royal for Power, An Analysis of the Role Power Plays in Ralph Ellison’s Battle Royal

Ralph Ellison’s Battle Royal depicts the struggle that was being a black person in a country controlled by white men. An analysis of Ellison’s short story, finds power to be the overwhelming theme discussed throughout. Ellison relies on numerous symbols and events to elaborate upon the various roles in which power plays in his short story, Battle Royal. Ellison uses the stripper, electric rug, speech, and battle royal to perfection to demonstrate the role that power plays in Battle Royal.

Ellison first introduces his theme to the reader in the scene with the stripper. In this scene, Ellison

Ellison first introduces the naivety of the narrator with the fact of him simply showing up to the hotel, in which the smoker was being held. Although the white men do not exert their power in this particular episode, the opportunity to speak in front of the town’s most powerful white leaders is what lead our unknown narrator to the smoker. “Everyone praised me and I was invited to give the speech at a gathering of the town’s leading white citizens. It was a triumph for our whole community.” In truth however, our narrator was there for entertainment purposes, in the form of the battle royal as well as the electric rug. The speech was an afterthought. Speaking of the electric carpet, Ellison also uses power in this scene to demonstrate the naivety of our narrator. After the battle royal, the white men in the smoker use their power to force all of the black boys around an electric rug. The fact the narrator does not know about the electrocution that is to come, adds to the role that power plays in the naivety of our narrator. “I lunged for a yellow coin lying on the blue design of the carpet, touching it and sending a surprised shriek to join those rising around me… The rug was electrified.” In this scene the white men’s power is used to demonstrate the naivety of not only the narrator but also the

In this scene Ellison uses the power of the white men to demonstrate the blacks struggle for equality. The whites force the blacks to fight each other for, as the book states, entertainment purposes. Physically the blacks are fighting each other, however emotionally, the battle represents a fight against the power in which the whites exercise over the blacks. “Everyone fought hysterically. It was complete anarchy.” The black men were more concerned on the beating the living crap out of each other rather than focusing their efforts on trying to gain the control in which the white men exerted over them. The black boys in the battle royal placed more emphasis on gaining acceptance from the whites. “The harder we fought the more threating the men became.” The narrator too, seeks approval from the whites as he begins worrying about speech. “… I had begun to worry about my speech again. How would it go? Would they recognize my ability?” Power in this instance pins the powerless black boys against each other, rather than uniting them against the all-powerful whites. This makes the struggle for equality much harder for the