Theme Of Community In A Modest Proposal And Battle Royal

Swift and Ellison share a common theme in their writings. They each want to capture the attention of their audience in order to reveal a more significant controversy at hand. In this instance, the theme of failure to one’s community is prevalent in works such a A Modest Proposal and Battle Royal. Throughout this essay, these writings will be broken down in to several components to exemplify the use of this theme. This includes the analysis of characters, symbols, setting, and language and their development throughout the stories. The writer will present evidence of this theme within the developing plots.
To begin with, A Modest Proposal does not include any significant characters other than the narrator, but it does include the elements of

Unlike A Modest Proposal, Battle Royal presents us with a nameless character that narrates his experience when he is asked to present a speech on humility to “leading white citizens” of the town (Ellison 362). Before the presentation of his speech, he is forced to perform a variety of humiliating tasks such as fighting, scrambling for money, and observing a prancing, naked women (Ellison 363-368). During this time, he is mocked and scorned at by the people who invited him to present his astounding speech. At the end of the story, he realizes that the whole scenario was a ruse in order to keep him docile and compliant to the whims of the rich (Ellison 371). Another important character is the grandfather that passes away in the beginning of Battle Royal (Ellison 361). He explains that in order to survive, people must abandon their own wants in order to please those in charge (Ellison 361). This creates a sense of conflict within the narrator who is torn between his own pride and meekly following commands. These characters represent a failure to one’s community by demonstrating that the oppressed would rather ensure their safety then charge the

This is significant because during the narrator’s speech his states that humility is the key to living during this time period which induces a positive correlation with the wants of the white community (Ellison 362). Also, the ballroom is significant to the setting when he is invited to parrot what the white southerns believe is the place of the blacks. During his stay in this grand place, it is used as a party room, constructed solely for entertainment (Ellison 362). It is not, as the setting suggests, an honor for the narrator to be there nor is he the focus of the crowd. Instead, he is undermined by fights and drunken gentlemen. This brazen disrespect perplexes the narrator, but he complies with their demands so he is not viewed as overstepping his