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http://www.wicknet.org/english/bfreeman/Anthology/battle_royal.htm
Battle Royal
Ralph Ellison
It goes a long way back, some twenty years. 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. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking
everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much
painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been
born with: That I am nobody but myself. But first I had to discover that I am an invisible man!
And yet I am no freak of nature, nor of history. I was in the cards, other things having been equal
(or unequal) eighty-five years ago. I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am
only ashamed of myself for having at one time been ashamed. About eighty-five years ago they were told
they were free, united with others of our country in everything pertaining to the common good, and, in
everything social, separate like the fingers of the hand. And they believed it. They exulted in it. They
stayed in their place, worked hard, and brought up my father to do the same. But my grandfather is the
one. He was an odd old guy, my grandfather, and I am told I take after him. It was he who caused the
trouble. On his deathbed he called my father to him and said, "Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up
the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in
the enemy's country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. 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." They thought the old man had gone out
of his mind. He had been the meekest of men. The younger children were rushed from the room, the
shades drawn and the flame of the lamp turned so low that it sputtered on the wick like the old man's
breathing. "Learn it to the younguns," he whispered fiercely; then he died.
But my folks were more alarmed over his last words than over his dying. It was as though he had
not died at all, his words caused so much anxiety. I was warned emphatically to forget what he had said
and, indeed, this is the first time it has been mentioned outside the family circle. It had a tremendous
effect upon me, however. I could never be sure of what he meant. Grandfather had been a quiet old man
who never made any trouble, yet on his deathbed he had called himself a traitor and a spy, and he had
spoken of his meekness as a dangerous activity. It became a constant puzzle which lay unanswered in the
back of my mind. And whenever things went well for me I remembered my grandfather and felt guilty
and uncomfortable. It was as though I was carrying out his advice in spite of myself. And to make it
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worse, everyone loved me for it. I was praised by the most lily-white men in town. I was considered an
example of desirable con- duct-just as my grandfather had been. And what puzzled me was that the old
man had defined it as treachery. When I was praised for my conduct I felt a guilt that in some way I was
doing something that was really against the wishes of the white folks, that if they had understood they
would have desired me to act just the opposite, that I should have been sulky and mean, and that that
really would have been what they wanted, even though they were fooled and thought they wanted me to
act as I did. It made me afraid that some day they would look upon me as a traitor and I would be lost.
Still I was more afraid to act any other way because they didn't like that at all. The old man's words were
like a curse. On my graduation day I delivered an oration in which I showed that humility was the secret,
indeed, the very essence of progress. (Not that I believed this-how could I, remembering my
grandfather?—I only believed that it worked.) It was a great success. Everyone praised me and I was
invited to give the speech at a gathering of the town's leading white citizens. It was a triumph for the
whole community.
It was in the main ballroom of the leading hotel. When I got there I discovered that it was on the
occasion of a smoker, and I was told that since I was to be there anyway I might as well take part in the
battle royal to be fought by some of my schoolmates as part of the entertainment. The battle royal came
first.
All of the town's big shots were there in their tuxedoes, wolfing down the buffet foods, drinking
beer and whiskey and smoking black cigars. It was a large room with a high ceiling. Chairs were arranged
in neat rows around three sides of a portable boxing ring. The fourth side was clear, revealing a gleaming
space of polished floor. I had some misgivings over the battle royal, by the way. Not from a distaste for
fighting but because I didn't care too much for the other fellows who were to take part. They were tough
guys who seemed to have no grandfather's curse worrying their minds. No one could mistake their
toughness. And besides, I suspected that fighting a battle royal might detract from the dignity of my
speech. In those pre-invisible days I visualized myself as a potential Booker T. Washington. But the other
fellows didn't care too much for me either, and there were nine of them. I felt superior to them in my way,
and I didn't like the manner in which we were all crowded together in the servants' elevator. Nor did they
like my being there. In fact, as the warmly lighted floors flashed past the elevator we had words over the
fact that I, by taking part in the fight, had knocked one of their friends out of a night's work.
We were led out of the elevator through a rococo hall into an anteroom and told to get into our
fighting togs. Each of us was issued a pair of boxing gloves and ushered out into the big mirrored hall,
which we entered looking cautiously about us and whispering, lest we might accidentally be heard above
the noise of the room. It was foggy with cigar smoke. And already the whiskey was taking effect. I was
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shocked to see some of the most important men of the town quite tipsy. They were all there-bankers,
lawyers, judges, doctors, fire chiefs, teachers, merchants. Even one of the more fashionable pastors.
Something we could not see was going on up front. A clarinet was vibrating sensuously and the men were
standing up and moving eagerly forward. We were a small tight group, clustered together, our bare upper
bodies touching and shining with anticipatory sweat: while up front the big shots were becoming
increasingly excited over something we still could not see. Suddenly I heard the school superintendent,
who had told me to come, yell, "Bring up the shines, gentlemen! Bring up the little shines!"
We were rushed up to the front of the ballroom, where it smelled even more strongly of tobacco
and whiskey. Then we were pushed into place. I almost wet my pants. A sea of faces, some hostile, some
amused, ringed around us, and in the center, facing us, stood a magnificent blonde—stark naked. There
was dead silence. I felt a blast of cold air chill me. I tried to back away, but they were behind me and
around me. Some of the boys stood with lowered heads, trembling. I felt a wave of irrational guilt and
fear. My teeth chattered, my skin turned to goose flesh, my knees knocked. Yet I was strongly attracted
and looked in spite of myself. Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked. The hair
was yellow like that of a circus kewpie doll, the face heavily powdered and rouged, as though to form an
abstract mask, the eyes hollow and smeared a cool blue, the color of a baboon's butt. I felt a desire to spit
upon her as my eyes brushed slowly over her body. Her breasts were firm and round as the domes of East
Indian temples, and I stood so close as to see the fine skin texture and beads of pearly perspiration
glistening like dew around the pink and erected buds of her nipples. I wanted at one and the same time to
run from the room, to sink through the floor, or go to her and cover her from my eyes and the eyes of the
others with my body; to feel the soft thighs, to caress her and destroy her, to love her and to murder her, to
hide from her, and yet to stroke where below the small American flag tattooed upon her belly her thighs
formed a capital V. I had a notion that of all in the room she saw only me with her impersonal eyes.
And then she began to dance, a slow sensuous movement; the smoke of a hundred cigars clinging
to her like the thinnest of veils. She seemed like a fair bird-girl girdled in veils calling to me from the
angry surface of some gray and threatening sea. I was transported. Then I became aware of the clarinet
playing and the big shots yelling at us. Some threatened us if we looked and others if we did not. On my
right I saw one boy faint. And now a man grabbed a silver pitcher from a table and stepped close as he
dashed ice water upon him and stood him up and forced two of us to support him as his head hung and
moans issued from his thick bluish lips. Another boy began to plead to go home. He was the largest of the
group, wearing dark red fighting trunks much too small to conceal the erection which projected from him
as though in answer to the insinuating low-registered moaning of the clarinet. He tried to hide himself
with his