Tuesday, March 5, 2013

The Battle Royal: A Story of Realisation of Individual Limitations



While reading 'The Battle Royal' by Ralph Ellison, I find the event in which the narrator is called to redeliver his speech most disturbing. The event that he is called by some people to deliver his graduation speech again at a gathering reminds me of an experience that I myself passed through more than a decade ago. Since that experience was not so good for me, I find this call in the story equally disturbing and I can predict the problems that the narrator will face later. Further, that event makes me highlight innocence of the narrator to prove that the story is depiction of an individual's limitations. Then, for me, the story is an expression of individual weaknesses and their realisation, more than the voice for racial equality. 
When I was in Grade 5, I had won a speech competition among more than 20 schools. But, the speech I delivered was not written by me, but by one of my teachers, and I had just learnt that by heart. Other competitors had not known this fact, but only few of my school teachers. Though I had not written the speech originally, everyone appreciated my opinion and rhetoric and many of them thought me as a great and talented child after I was given the award. I was obviously happy then, but later it resulted into a problematic experience.
About a month after that event, a quiz contest among the same schools was organised and I led the team from my school. Fortunately, we won again. In the prize distribution, the organiser asked me to speak few words on our victory, which I had never expected. I thought they did so as to make me feel humiliated and guilty. They also wanted there to prove that I was not as good and talented as they had thought of me. I could not do it as I was not prepared, neither did I have any such talent to prepare speech instantly as they might have thought. Pale and puzzled, my face turned red suddenly and I stood there motionless for a minute. Seemingly understanding my complication, the announcer let me go back. But after that, on my way back to home, my school teachers and friends criticized and hated me badly about my lack of talent!
Though there are many differences, I can associate the narrator being called to present his speech again after the great applause in the graduation ceremony with me being asked to present a speech in the quiz contest after they had known that I won the speech contest earlier. Both of the events involve similar kind of act: challenge to prove previous success.
Given my experience such, I can easily suspect the call to redeliver speech as an attempt to make the narrator feel guilty and humiliated about self. I no longer perceive that event as a triumph either for him, or for his whole community. As the experience that I went through was completely in account of my individual strengths and weaknesses, I believe that the experiences that the narrator felt are because of his individual characteristics, which have nothing to do with his race or community. I also withdraw myself from interpreting the white's treatments to the narrator as originated from their racial chauvinism and feeling of hatred and discrimination toward the blacks. I just take them as the attempts to mistreat an individual (the narrator) who has many personal weaknesses and the whites in the story are just playing tricks on his innocence as smarter people generally do with less smarter ones everywhere. Thus, the white people seem to me not that much guilty and convicted as most of the readers might think.
The blonde dance, the fight and people drinking and talking turn quite unimportant for me in comparison with the speech experience of the narrator. Those events are not familiar for me as the speech and the trauma about the speech are.
After the experience that I explained earlier, I happened to realise my shortcomings and weaknesses. That realisation had helped me develop my skills regarding confidence and public speaking.  Thus, I can assume that after the humiliating experience at the gathering and in his dream, the narrator must have realised his limitations which will eventually help him correct them. Thus, I will not hate all those white people as they are hated by general readers. Of course, they are guilty in terms of how they treat to the narrator and other fighters of the Battle Royal. They can be accused convicts for they deliberately and with fine plans underestimate dignity and value of some innocent youths from the other community. But since it eventually led the narrator realise the truth and that the realisation was meaningful to his life, the white people have helped him significantly but indirectly in his life. Thus, regardless of whether they deliberately intend so or not, I put white people as ones who have some important contribution to the narrator's realisation of the truth.  
The event that the organisers forget to call the narrator for speech annoys him; but it satisfies me as I can interpret this as an opportunity to escape the traumatic experience of realisation of one's innocence and other limitations. As I already have had the idea that his speech second time brings him nothing but guilt and low self esteem, I do not want to go through that part. As the people interrogate him about individual words and punctuations, I again feel myself more traumatic and in risk as that is what I wished not to face. Thus, while interpreting, I don't discuss the interrogation that much seriously. Perhaps, I escape that and only focus on his realisation as that has at least a silver line for his future.
I find the grandfather in dream similar to the white people, because they have the same role in the event that I am familiar with. In other words, the grandfather also helps the narrator realise his shortcomings so as to alert him against probable manipulations, and it is quite similar to the white people's act of calling him to redeliver the speech. The only difference is the grandfather does it knowingly.
Thus, for me, the story no longer remains as an anti-racism story as I find the central character (the narrator) more an individual with some strengths and weaknesses in a difficult circumstance (much like myself!), rather than a representative and typical youth from black community among white people. I consequently focus on his individual problems as they seem familiar to me and interpret all those based on my real experiences. With that background, I can justify the story as one that shows individual shortcomings realised later after a traumatic experience.
  

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