Battle Royal

Term Paper Title	Battle Royal
# of Words	970
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.88

Battle Royal

     If I had to pick one out of the many stories that we have read and say
that it moved me the most, I would have to say that the story would have to be
"Battle Royal." The reason that the story did move me so was because of the
author's keens use of symbolism. I intend to prove, using textual evidence, that
through the use of symbolism, the author portrays a larger meaning than what is
initially implied to the reader who does not thoroughly analyze the text.
     Initially, the story seems to be about one black boy's struggle to get
ahead in a prodominetly white society. He tries' to accomplish this goal by
adhering to his grandfathers dieing words. His grand father told him to "live
with your head in the lion's mouth. I want you to overcome �em with yeses,
undermine �em with grins, agree �em to death and destruction, let �em swoller
you till they vomit or bust wide open." In other words his grandfather was
telling him to conform to the white peoples way of life in order to get ahead. I
believe that the story had a deeper meaning than the aforementioned one. I
believe that if the reader were to take a deeper look into all of the symbolism
in the story, one would find that the summation of all the symbolism is equal to
not only the struggle of this one black boy, but the struggle of all blacks at
the time in which this story takes place.
     I think that if one were to analyze the grandfathers dieing words, one
would find the view of most conformist black Americans. The only way for a black
person to excel at that time was to conform to the white society. Any rebels
that tried to stand up for their rights were mostly killed by anti-black groups
such as the KKK.
     There was one symbol in the story that stood out especially in my mind
and that was the stripper. She was a tall blonde haired blue eyed woman with a
tattoo of the American flag on her belie. I think that the stripper symbolized
the perfect American white woman, something that a black man could strive his
whole life to attain, but would never receive. This was a symbol of the many
things that a white man could have, whereas a black man could not.
     I believe that the blind folded boxing in the story is a representation
of the blind hatred of blacks at the time this story took place. By blind hatred
I mean the ignorance of the people of the time who could hate a person for the
color of their skin. The boxers in the ring wailed at each other, not knowing
whom they were hitting or why, just that they had to fight. This was true in the
white American society of the time because they didn't know the black people,
they blindly sent blows of segregation without actually knowing each individual,
but ster...

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