The African American Struggle for Equality and Identity in Ralph Ellison's Battle Royal

Ralph Ellison's short story "The Battle of the Kingdom" mainly explains African-American struggle for equality and identity. A narrator in this story is a young man above the average of the African American community [Goldstein - Shirlet, 1999]. He has a chance to speak with a more impressive white man. His expectation of being accepted in a positive and ordinary environment was greatly broken when he faced the cruelty of the process he had to deal with to fulfill his mission.

Ralph Ellison 's story "Royal Fight" has many symbols. Ellison 's story is full of extraordinary symbols of struggle for equality of African American history. The narrator starts telling the story by explaining the last sentence of his grandfather 's death. In his last sentence, his grandfather expressed that he hoped to keep fighting for the sake of black equality for future generations. Ellison used many symbols in this story to prove the lack of black equality. These symbols include: fight itself, short case of Shad Whimore store, and banner for stripper.

Ralph Ellison's short story "Royal Fight" is symbolic in many ways. In a sense, it symbolizes the African-American struggle for equality in the history of our country. The difficulty that a narrator must endure speech represents many of the difficulties that blacks have experienced in the struggle for equality. The narrator of Ellison 's short story is very suffering. He is considered to be one of the brightest young people in his black community. That young man got the opportunity to speak with a top-notch white man. The harsh treatment he did to carry out his mission is very symbolic. It represents the many difficulties African Americans experienced in the fight for equal treatment in the United States. He wants to speak in a positive and normal environment. To face him is something he never imagined.