Battle Royal
By Ralph Ellison
This is a story that is based in the time period of Jim Crow laws, unfair treatment of black servants (notice, they are servants at this point and no longer slaves) and the ridiculous behavior of white elitists in the south.
From a very broad level of analysis, I did not enjoy this story. This is simply because I do not prefer the graphic nature used to convey the extreme measures that white elitists went through to feel superior to a lower class, a different race, who they saw as a source of entertainment.
The presence of a nude white woman is an extreme measure. While making the white elitists look nothing more than pigs and disgusting human beings, it also made the woman and the servants weak. It was a boost to the egos of successful white men to set a nude woman, an object forbidden from servants of their nature, in front of these men and make them fear for their lives. This makes it evident that, although slavery was no more, the ideals and ignorance of the so-called Southern gentleman were still very much present.
Reading into the deeper meaning from Ellison, the unfortunate black boy with a powerful white message is closely related to the ideals brought forth by Booker T. Washington. Washington was well respected and well-known. The horrible fight and brawl of the battle royal in this story parallels Washington's hard work in making himself that well respected and well-known figure. It parallels the agreement from Dubois that it was something worthwhile to fight for. It took blood, sweat, and tears to fight that battle.
But just as the battle royal parallels the real struggle and fight for respect, the boy's powerful message, laced with white ideals, paralleled the disagreement that Dubois had with Washington in 1901.
The speech which read "To those of my race who depend upon bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is his next-door neighbor, I would say: 'Cast down your bucket where you are' - cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded" pleased elitists of that society (p. 534.)
That speech, much like Washington's solutions, signified a black man rolling over and impressing the elitists of society by recanting exactly what they wanted to hear.
A circus ring and a boxing ring are one in the same. The dream mimicked the reality. A laughless grandfather was still teaching as he let his grandson see that the clowns in that circus ring, the members "violently punching" in that boxing ring, were not as entertaining as it appeared to be.
