Symbolism in Ralph Ellison "B

"Battle Royal," by Ralph Ellison was a very difficult piece of literature for me to understand since I didn't grow up in the african american society. One boy is invited to speak at local men's club where he will deliver his graduation speech. As I go on, I will discuss the nature of the short story and how it affected me. In one way it is symbolic of the African Americans' struggle for equality throughout this nation's history. The various hardships that the narrator must endure, in his quest to deliver his speech, are representative of the many hardships that the blacks went through in their fight for equality

The narrator in Ellison's short story suffers much. He is considered to be one of the brighter youths in his black community. The young man is given the opportunity to give a speech to some of the more prestigious white individuals. The harsh treatment that he is dealt in order to perform his task is quite symbolic. It represents the many hardships that the African American people endured while they fought to be treated equally in the United States. He expects to give his speech in a positive and normal environment. What faces him is something that he never wo

After all of this humiliation, the narrator finally got to recite his graduation speech. The crowd was still laughing at him and all the others that had been brutally beaten. He gave his well-written speech with some quivering in his voice. The crowd actually began to listen to him while he delivered his speech. They started to listen when he said responsible. After the speech was over, the man over the "men's club" came up and praised him. To me, this was very ironic because why would they do that to someone and then praise him for a job well done? I am thinking that maybe they did this just to test his patience and pride. It paid off because one of the white men gave him a brief case with a document inside of it. The document was a scholarship to the State College for Negroes. The narrator was ecstatic. He then had a dream that night. He dreamed about what his grandfather had said earlier. He awoke with laughing in his ear. He had no idea what it meant at that time. This incident with the beating made him realize that he can stand up for himself and other people in turn making him a better person for society. He felt some better because he proved them wrong. Black men in that time period can make a difference and the narrator was out to prove it.

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