Analyzing its demonstration of the ideological power of white supremacy.
Ellison began his novel, “Invisible Man” in 1945 and it was published in 1952. Although slavery had been abolished for about eighty years, the laws and the justice system did not protect African Americans from the indignity of segregation and racism at the hand of white people. There was still lynching and the senseless mistreatment and even murders of African Americans by whites. In “Battle Royal,” Ralph Ellison displays the behaviors African Americans had to adopt, that was considered “desirable” to white people, to survive. But, these behaviors were also seen as a betrayal to the black race. In the story, Ellison uses imagery