Battle Royale

In “Battle Royal,” Ellison uses details of setting to create the mood of horror and repulsion. The horror begins when the narrator listens to a conversation between his father and grandfather, as his grandfather lay on his death bed. “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” (256). This statement had a great effect on the narrator, although he wasn’t quite sure what it meant. It set a sense of fear in him. “And whenever things went well for me I remember my grandfather and felt guilty and uncomfortable. It was as though I was carrying out his advice in spite of myself”(257). The narrator didn’t plan on taking his grandfather’s advice, and each time he found himself doing exactly that, it made him feel guilty. “I felt guilt that in some way I was doing something that was really against the wishes of the white folks” (257). This continued path of fear and hatred are carried out throughout the story. Ellison gives the reader the idea of hatred and horror when he sets the scene in the ballroom of the hotel. This is where the “Battle Royal” was to take place. The battle room was filled with smoke and in the center was the portable boxing ring that was to be used for the fight. On three sides of the ring, chairs were placed for the audience to observe the battle. These audience members were that of an upper-class status, “...bankers, lawyers, judges, doctors, fire chiefs, teachers, merchants. Even one of the more fashionable pastors” (258). To top it off, they were all white as well. Each of them arrived in tuxedos “...wolfing down the buffet foods, drinking beer and whiskey and smoking black cigars” (257). Ellison was taking us into the scene to show us the intimidation the narrator felt as he saw the audience members. It was extremely terrifying for the narrator. After the fighters were ordered to the ring, they were to be blindfolded. This gave the narrator a sense of fear and horror that he was not used to. He didn’t like the darkness and the unknowing of what lied ahead. “...I felt a sudden fit of terror. I was unused to darkness. It was as though I had suddenly found myself in a dark room filled with poisonous cottonmouths” (259). One of the audience members spoke to the narrator, “See that boy over there?...I want you to run across at the bell and give it to him right in the belly. If you don’t get him, I’m going to get you” (259). This was told to the other fighters as well. Not one person in the audience felt any sympathy for the boys. One yelled, “I want to get that ginger-colored nigger. Tear him limb from limb” (259). Others were kicking chairs and causing quite a commotion. This put an even greater horrifying feeling in the narrator. “I wanted to see, to see more desperately than ever before” (260). The blindfold was not allowing this. All it was doing was taking away what dignity he had. After the battle was complete, the portable ring was taken away and a small rug with coins, bills, and gold pieces was put in its place. Each of the fighters were told to sit around the rug as though they were of another species, perhaps from another planet. This set a sense of excitement in each of them, but at the same time they feared what was to come. Once the narrator heard the word “Go” (262) he went straight for the goods. “I lunged for a yellow coin lying on the blue design of the carpet, touching it and sending a surprised shriek to join those rising around me. I tried frantically to remove my hand but could not let go. A hot, violent force tore through my body, shaking me like a wet rat. The rug was electrified” (262-3). This didn’t stop the crowd from yelling obscenities at the boys. “Pick it up, goddamnit, pick it up!...Go on, get it” (263). This made the boys feel as though they had to do what was said, they feared the crowd more than they feared the electricity of the rug. Ellison uses this scene to show the repulsion the audience felt toward the fighters and the fear the fighters had of them. Throughout this story, “Battle Royal,” Ellison creates a mood of horror and repulsion toward the black fighters, especially toward the narrator. From the first scene next to the grandfather’s death bed, to the money on the rug. He takes his readers to the fight to see just what’s taking place, not only in the mind of the narrator, but in the minds of the upper-class white folks as well. By describing to the readers the details of each scene, he gives them a chilling sense of what it’s like to be horrified and hated.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "The Birthmark" shows the foolishness of endeavoring to create a perfect being, and by doing so, intruding upon the realm of the divine. Hawthorne conveys this message through the story of the scientist Aylmer and his beautiful wife, Georgiana, who has a minuscule, hand-shaped birthmark on her left cheek. Aylmer becomes obsessed with this mark that keeps his wife from being perfect, and resolves to remove the mark using his science. Throughout the telling of "The Birthmark" Hawthorne uses symbols to further illustrate the rapacity of man, and the barriers between the earthly, sinful world and heaven.

The flower that Aylmer shows Georgiana depicts the elusiveness of perfection. When Georgiana tried to pluck the flower "the whole plant suffered a blight, its leaves turning coal-black as if by the agency of fire" (Hawthorne, 308). Georgiana, a flawed individual, attempts to obtain a perfect flower, but instead causes the flower to die, for Georgiana's touch represents the imperfections inherent in all human beings. When Aylmer muttered "There was too powerful a stimulus" (308), the stimulus he mentions alludes to the flaw within Georgiana. The flower is continually dying to show that an object as perfect as the flower cannot live or suffer the touch of the imperfect.

The quick, insubstantial figures that danced before Georgiana describe how the imagination concocts fanciful goals that seem reasonable but later proves to be beyond the purview of men. These images "were perfectly represented, but with that bewitching yet indescribable difference which makes a picture, an image, or a shadow so much more attractive than the original" (308). This refers to certain goals that, like mirages, appear solid and within reach, but later proves to be illusory. Although the scientific community views Aylmer as one of the best of his field, he failed to discover how Nature created man while succeeding in other areas; the corollary that can be drawn from his failures pertain to any sublime goals in which mankind attempts to create the perfect being. Just as the figures are bodiless illusions, the goals of Aylmer and those like him are unattainable and without substance.

Hawthorne's use of mirrors to remark on the soul is present when Georgiana looks into her reflection in a polished plate of metal. Georgiana found the "features of the portrait blurred and indefinable; while the minute figure of a hand appeared where the cheek should have been" (308). The plate reflected Georgiana's birthmark, the only thing keeping her from obtaining unearthly perfection. Although Georgiana did not know the birthmark's true role as an indicator of the state of her soul, she was troubled by the hand because it confirmed the presence of a flaw within her. When the mark is removed there will be no distinguishable image in the reflection, for, having obtained perfection, she will transcend the earthly world.

The birthmark on Georgiana's cheek, the object of Aylmer and Georgiana's mutual hate, symbolizes the sins of man. Aylmer states that the birthmark was "the visible mark of earthly imperfection" (301). These sins and flaws separates mankind from the beings in heaven and can only be purged in death. Georgiana is aware that death, not Aylmer's science, will remove this birthmark from her cheek. She wishes to "put off this birthmark of mortality by relinquishing mortality itself in preference to any other mode" (314). In the end, Aylmer does accomplish his goal of creating the perfect being but at the cost of his wife's life. Georgiana obtains perfection only at the ascension of her spirit.

Hawthorne demonstrates at once both the inability of men to stay in their place in the universal hierarchy, by trespassing on the secrets of Nature and God, and the futility of such an attempt through "The Birthmark". Georgiana represents the closest state to perfection that man can aspire to but Aylmer is not content. He strives for perfection in his wife, a goal that, if successful, will result in his losing his wife, for the perfect cannot exist in the earthly world. Instead, at her death Georgiana's soul will be purged of her sins and finally allowed to achieve perfection.