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Symbolism In Ralph Ellison's Battle Royal

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Ralph Ellison is an African American Novelist, scholar, and writer. He is most known for his best Novel, Invisible Man, which won the National Book award. He was also referred to as the invisible man. He was named after one of the most well-known poets, Ralph Waldo Emerson
In Ellison story, “Battle Royal,” he uses many building blocks of fiction. In this journal entry, I will talk about a few symbols throughout the story. I will show how Ellison used this building block to create a meaningful story.
First, Ellison uses the title as a symbol. The title “Battle Royal” shows the struggle of the African Americans for equality in the early years of the 1900s. Throughout the story it shows how much harder it was for African American males. In the …show more content…

In the story, the boys were given an opportunity to get free money but every time one of the boys would touch the money they were shocked. This symbolized the economic crisis for African Americans. This showed that African Americans could make money but it was a struggle and they had to endure pain to get it. Even though the coins were shocking the boys, they kept trying to get it, showing that they will never give up on equality. Though the boys did the best they could, in the end there would always be something or someone there to knock them back down. It didn’t matter what the whites did to them to try to keep them down, they would still work just as hard as the white man to be socially equal.
In this journal entry, I’ve talked about Ralph Ellison, A novelist and scholar, I also wrote about one of the main building blocks of fiction, which is symbol, in the short story “Battle Royal”. This important building block of fiction is what makes this short story so empowering and moving. This story gives us an insight on how hard it was being an African American male in the 1900s. Though it was hard, they did whatever the white men told them to do just to try and get ahead in life. This story resembles how hard it is still being a African American

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The short story Battle Royal by Ellison Ralph used many symbols to add depth to his narrative. In the beginning of the story about the Invisible Man it follows the story of a Black protagonist who is invited to give a speech for these powerful white men. However the events quickly turn to a humiliating battle royal. Where many other young black men are forced to fight each other for the entertainment of the white audience. One of many symbols to take note would be the grandfather's photo the protagonist had.

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Further humiliation was in store when the boys had to fight for coins and bills that were strewn on a rug, which they realized too late was electrified. The “good, hard American cash” (Ellison 8) that they thought they were fighting for turned out to be “brass pocket tokens advertising a certain make of automobiles” (Ellison 12). The entire incident made the narrator understand his own invisibility; the blacks were not important enough to be allowed to fight for real

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In the story the narrator persisted to fight through the temptation of oppression of the stripper, the beating in the ring, and the electric rug just for a little scrap change (Ellison 181-183). All of this would commonly be regarded as treason towards his African American heritage like his grandfather said (Ellison 177). I feel that going against his race for his dream

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