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Battle royal (Click to select text)
"Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight…Live with your head in the Lion's mouth"(174). In Battle Royal, by Ralph Ellison, the protagonist is dealt many expectations. The unnamed narrator is placed in a situation where he instantly must choose between his own dream of college and his grandfather's hope of equality. He remains unnamed throughout the story because he has no sense of self. Contrary to his grandfather's last words, he fights a battle within his own race, living up to the expectations of the white men and thus losing sight of his duty to stand up for his race as a black man. Ironically, the boy fights a battle not with the white race, but within his own race. He physically participates in a brawl that leaves the fighters bullying members of their own breed. This battle among the black race consists not only of physical trauma, but emotional trauma as well, for the boy believes he is somehow not connected to the black race. As he waltzes into the hotel, the boy feels as if he is on a higher level than his fellow black men because he is educated, and he says of his racial equals, "I felt superior to them in my way, and I didn't like the manner in which we were all crowded together into the servants' elevator"(175). The boy undergoes a realization that he is, in fact, not a Booker T. Washington as he plans to be in life, but merely a common black man who is in disagreement with his own race. He comes to this realization after being victimized by the white men and forced into battle with men of his own ethnicity. As a result of the ethnic battle, the boy ultimately lives up to the expectations of the white men. He expects to live with "his head in the Lion's mouth(174)" and undermine the white man with a covert retaliation, but unfortunately he slips his head out of the lion's reach just as the jaws slam shut, forcing him to become a traitor to his own race. The protagonist gives in to the white man by remaining docile to equal rights and actually urging his fellow African-Americans to file into the norms of society by accepting the idea of inequality. After the boy's speech, the white MC says, "Gentlemen, you see that I did not overpraise this boy. He makes a good speech and some day he'll lead his people in the proper paths"(182). By emphasizing "social responsibility" to his racial equals, the boy falls prey to the expectations placed upon him by the white race. The white men also expect the boy to act like an animal when he is around his fellow black men. Along with his classmates, the boy gets down on all fours and reaches for coins as if money is more important than dignity-proving the white men's beliefs to be true. While the narrator lives up to the expectations placed upon him by the white race, he consequently loses sight of his role as a black man. As he looks back at his life he says, "All my life I had been looking for something and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory"(174). He has lived his life in correspondence to how people think he should live, and he has sacrificed his own self-awareness on account of his fear of upsetting his superiors-the white race. On graduation day, he gives a speech that declares that humility is the only way that blacks will progress in life. He admits to himself that he does not believe this idea because of his grandfather's declaration, yet, he proceeds to announce before a congregation of black men, women, and children that they must be docile to the white man's command. He uses terms such as "social responsibility" (175) to emphasize his point of submissiveness. His speech is so white-man oriented that he is invited to speak in front of the town's leading white officials. While speaking in front of the white community, the boy transforms into a scared little boy, much different from his demeanor at graduation. As he speaks, it is as if his grandfather enters into his own body and strangles him with the boy's own blood-a warning not to speak submissively. The boy, however, lets both his grandfather and himself down by losing sight of his own purpose-to rebel silently, for the boy does not rebel at all.
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