Realism In Battle Royal

Realism in Battle Royal

Ralph Ellison, author of Battle Royal, proclaimed that “the duty of a writer is to speak truth to power but also accept the punishment that goes with telling the truth” (Butler 759) which is the framework implemented in Battle Royal. The realism in Battle Royal is evident due to the presence of controversial topics—social equality and social responsibility—belonging to the history of post-emancipation in Southern United States. It is evident due to the parallelism of the author, Ralph Ellison’s, life experiences, the narrator’s constant concern for his graduation speech, and the recurring motif of blindness throughout Battle Royal.

The realism in Battle Royal is incorporated through the representation of a character

The realism in Battle Royal is conveyed through the narrator’s commitment to his education —the principle of “social responsibility”, in other words, that blacks should “endeavor to show…that only through co-operation, working together, could they prosper”—with the powerful white men—a philosophy imposed by Booker T. Washington (Work 312). Throughout the text, the author mentions his speech a total of nine times excluding the first mention. The narrator and his schoolmates, after being tormented by a naked white female placed in front of them (historically, simply looking at a white female with sexual interest lead to lynching) were then ordered to the ring, blindfolded, to partake in the battle royal. Still the narrator had been practising his speech. Moreover, the narrator heard the white men shouting hostility —“Uppercut him! Kill him! Kill that big boy!” (Ellison 6)—to the blindfolded men. As a matter of fact, the narrator felt as though he was being “singled-out” and struck from all sides and yet he grew concerned about his speech and whether or not he would receive recognition or praise from his white counterparts (Ellison 6). The narrator, while experiencing pain physically and emotionally, and amongst bigots and racists, remained concerned about his speech. Contrary to an instinctive—and realistic— response to detest the white men and abandon the humility speech,

The narrator is forced into the battle royal where he is blindfolded and placed in a ring to fight in a rigged match and “there was nothing to do but what [he and his schoolmates] were told.” (Ellison 4). The use of the blindfolds symbolize their powerlessness in the fight; but also in recognizing the white men’s exploitation of them. An African-American leader, W.E.B. DuBois, in the post-emancipation era, believed in constant protest for equality and rights in addressing the “race problem” to gain full inclusion in American society (Seaton 56). The men forced into the battle royal, blindfolded, is an example of the perpetual inequality and injustice that people of colour faced as “white supremacist ideologies… [were] that those of African descent do not deserve to be citizens of the American social body.” (Seaton 57). This ideology was held well into post-emancipation and people of colour were blinded and romanticized into the idea of “social responsibility” and the notion that they would be equal so long as they cooperated with white people. The idea of cooperating and working with white people “is to keep Blacks segregated from the rest of American [life]” (Seaton 57) and is symbolized through the narrator as he is “[b]lindfolded…could no longer control [his] motions. [He] had no dignity.”