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Battle Royal

In Ralph Ellison's essay "Battle Royal" he describes a Negro boy, timid and compliant,
comes to a white smoker in a Southern town: he is to be awarded a scholarship. Together with
several other Negroes he is rushed to the front of the ballroom, where a sumptuous blonde
tantalized and frightens them by dancing in the nude. Blindfolded, the Negro boys stage a
"battle royal, " a free-for-all in which they pummel each other to the drunken shouts of the
whites. "Practical jokes," humiliations, terrors—and then the boy delivers a prepared speech of
gratitude to his white benefactors. Any person with values and morals would be appalled and
ashamed by that the way the white men behaved.
The nightmare begins after the narrator makes a speech before his class. The narrator is highly praised for this speech and is asked to speak again to some of the important white citizens of his town. After the young Negro arrived at the hotel he is put in......

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Approximate Word Count: 1010
Approximate Pages: 5 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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