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Monster Essays - Battle Royal
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 mo....
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