Symbols In Battle Royal

Symbols are deliberately used in stories to add deeper meaning, not only for the readers but also for the characters themselves. Michael Meyer defines symbol as, "A person, object, image, word, or event that evokes a range of additional meaning beyond and usually more abstract than its literal significance" (Meyer 972). In "Battle Royal" by Ralph Ellison, the narrator struggles to understand his grandfather 's advice, he tries to live by it only to feel as if his grandfather mocks him for it. Throughout the story there are many symbols which seem to suggest a connection to the circus but are not understood by the narrator until he a dreams of them once more. The dream highlights these symbols that compare the lives of African Americans to a

However, the narrator never sees the connection between the circus and the lives of African Americans. Even after the fight is done and over, he doesn’t see the connection, only when he is much older does he understand. Far into the future he reminisces, "That night I dreamed I was at a circus with him and that he refused to laugh at the clowns no matter what they did. Then later he told me to open my brief case and read what was inside and I did, finding an official envelope stamped with the state seal; and inside the envelope I found another and another, endlessly and I thought I would fall of weariness. 'Them 's years, ' he said '. "Now open that one '. And I did and in it I found an engraved document containing a short message in letters of gold. 'Read it, ' my grandfather said. 'Out loud! ' 'To Whom It May Concern, ' I intoned. 'Keep This Nigger-Boy Running '" (Ellison 191). The grandfather refuses to laugh at them because he knows what it truly feels like to be a clown. He knows it 's all a performance they need to keep up. The letters are all the struggle and hardship the narrator will have to put up throughout his life and the rewards he will receive for his adequate behavior. The most important letter, with letters written in gold, is telling them to keep mistreating him because he will keep on going. The narrator is on the run throughout the novel, and he will continue to run

They are circus performers who are forced to accept the way they are treated, if not they would be punished. The young high school students are treated like clowns or perhaps animals, by being coerced into performing humiliating acts. They have no way of defending themselves other than by performing. Before he dies, the grandfather tries to tell him how to survive, "Live with your head in the lion 's mouth. I want you to overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree 'em to death and destruction, let 'em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open" (Ellison 180). Here the grandfather is saying that the white men are the lion tamer, telling them what to do, and they should do what they are told even if it means putting themselves in a dangerous situation. For them it is easier than disobeying and not knowing the consequences. He tells him to put up a performance until they can no longer take it. The boys are not the only ones who are treated like clowns or animals. The exotic dancer is as well, "The hair was yellow like that of a circus kewpie doll, the face heavily powdered and rouged, as though to form an abstract mask, the eyes hollow and smeared a cool blue, the color of a baboon 's butt" (Ellison 182). She too is putting on a performance for the white men, she is covered in makeup, in a way like a clown. However, unlike the boys she is white, so she is above them, but she is also a woman, so she is still below the white men. When she