Battle Royal

In Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal” the story is centered on the narrator, a young black man trying to establish himself as a man worthy of living in a society where the whites dominate the blacks. He dreadfully wants to live his life believing that everyone, regardless of race, has an equal chance in life. The narrator was living in a time slavery had been abolished, yet blacks were still being treated with far less equality. Everybody believed that he was just another “nigger boy.” “Battle Royal” symbolizes the struggle for African Americans fight for equality. Violence in this story comes about when the narrator is giving a speech at the Battle Royal.
The narrator was invited to present his graduation speech in fro...