Battle Royal by Ralph Ellison, Essay Example

Characters and setting are important parts of Ralph Ellison’s short story Battle Royal, however, it is his clever use of symbols that most accentuates the central themes of racism, class and gender. The symbolic nature of the story imparts a greater meaning to these ideas. The rite of passage, the dancing woman, the white blindfold, the brass tokens and the fight scene itself are just some of these essential symbols. This paper will discuss these symbols and conclude that they are vital aspects of Ellison’s short story.

Battle Royal is filled with important symbols. Firstly, the fight is more than just a rite of passage. While it is true the narrator must progress through the brutality of the fight to perform his speech – indeed, his first thoughts are not fear or panic but concern that “a battle royal might detract from the dignity of (his) speech” (Ellison 15) – the real initiation concerns disillusionment. In the beginning, he “feels superior” to the other boys because he considers himself “a potential Booker T. Washington” (Ellison 15). In other words, he believes that any Africa-American can achieve anything with the right attitude. The “battle royal” does not entirely destroy his naivety, but it certainly symbolizes the beginning of coming cynicism.

The second set of symbols in this chapter concerns the larger themes of class, gender and race. For example, before the fight begins the narrator is forced to watch a scantily clad young white woman parade for the drunken mob of white men. She symbolises lust, control, latent sexuality and power; all aspects we are to see as later characteristics of the narrator himself. Indeed, he is confused by her. He wants “to caress her and destroy her, to love her and murder her” all at the same time; perhaps because as a woman she too was being exploited just as he was; and perhaps she was also just as deluded about her actual measure of power within society dominated by white men. The woman represents yet another rite of passage because he, the narrator, has to confront these issues before he too can find his place in white society.

The blindfold and the brass tokens are also notable symbols in this episode. The blindfold represents the veil that white society has placed upon the narrator. The blindfold is white, yet it blinds him to the outside world, just as his naiveté blinds him to the true nature of his own race-reality. Indeed, the blindfold makes him aware of darkness, of his own darkness of skin. “I was unused to darkness”, he says, considering, as if for the first time his real color, his real place in society (Ellison 18). He tries to avoid the feeling by thinking about his upcoming speech, but the white blindfold was “pressed into place” smothering the “bright … flame” of his words (Ellison 18). For the narrator the blindfold is symbolic of a greater sightlessness.

The brass tokens represent futility. After performing well, the narrator and his former opponents must now perform yet again by picking up “gold” and money on an electrified rug. The gold tokens turn out to be brass – a mixture of elements perhaps representing the narrator’s own mixture of cultures – and are essentially worthless; they are advertising “tokens” for an automobile dealership. These tokens represent the futility of hope. What Ellison is trying to tell us is that even after striving and battling the black man is still dependent upon the white man’s gifts. Even then the “gifts” are essentially worthless. Moreover, ‘tokenism’ is yet another theme Ellison explores in the Battle Royal and the rest of the Invisible Man. Arguably, claims Ellison, in the end it is paternalism that truly keeps African American’s away from ultimate success in life.

The fight itself is also a powerful symbol. While the narrator and the other African American youths are degrading themselves for the entertainment of whites, they are also fighting each other. Disunited, they “fought hysterically”, indeed “Everybody fought everybody else. No group fought together for long” (Ellison 19). This event symbolizes how, at least in the narrator’s mind, African-Americans fought each other as much as they fought whites (Hill and Hill 113). Moreover, they were fighting for whatever scraps were on offer; and they did so almost without thought or reservation (Hill and Hill 114). Even when the narrator offers Tatlock a chance to win without further fighting the latter choses to continue, suggesting, says Ellison, that black Americans are truly blinded by their white blindfolds.

The Battle Royal is filled with symbolism, and these symbols most reflect the overall themes found in the narrative. In this episode Ellison explores the nature of the oppressive system the narrator endures each and every day. The futility of the narrator’s ambition is played out in a brutal arena, and in the end the reader is left with a growing sense of foreboding that things are not going to get much better for the protagonist. Indeed, it is through the various symbols – the blindfold, the woman, the brass tokens etc – that we begin to understand just how naïve the narrator is at the beginning of his journey to be “seen”.

 Works Cited

Hill, Michael and Lena Hill. Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man: A Reference Guide. Hartford CT: Greenwood, 2008.

Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. New York NY: Signet, 1952.