A Token Scholarship

This week, I wanted to continue discussing a question posed in class on Tuesday regarding Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal,” as well as simply discussing other related aspects of the story. The question that we talked about in class is whether or not our protagonist would have received his scholarship to the “state college for Negroes” (101) if he hadn’t gone through with all of the antics and charades that the white men put him through at the “gathering of the town’s leading white citizens” (3)? The answer to this question, I believe, is a simple no, but there is much to be discussed regarding this question and this story.

I think that the protagonist received his scholarship as a sort of reward for his good behavior in his life leading up to the point of the gathering and as a reward for his cooperation with the white man’s wishes at the gathering. The narrator described how he was an “example of desirable conduct” (3), and how after a speech at his graduation “everyone praised [him]” (3). These examples of good behavior are part of the reason why he received his scholarship, but ultimately it came down to his entertainment that he provided for the “big shots” (5). The narrator’s reason for going to the gathering was that he believed he was to deliver his speech in front of a large crowd of influential people. Just by itself, the speech can be viewed as a laudable action by the narrator which would support his receiving of a scholarship. However, it is very clear that the speech was never the reason the narrator was invited to the gathering. The fighting, scrambling for money, and “hilarious” entertainment were the true reasons for his presence at the gathering. So why did the narrator go through with it? Certainly he did not know that he would receive a scholarship to a state school for his actions; he only believed that he would be able to deliver his speech at the end of the proceedings. It was not even guaranteed that he would give his speech, but he was allowed to, partly out of pity and another slight reward for his previous actions, but mostly for the potential entertainment value of a black man trying to give a speech to a bunch of big-shot white men who really did not care about what he would be discussing. Through all this, though, the narrator went through with the “battle royal” (4) to follow through with his grandfather’s advice that he should “overcome ‘em with yeses” and “agree ‘em to death and destruction,” with the “them” being the white man (2). The narrator realizes the limited opportunities he has to advance himself in a white-controlled world, and he is willing to do all that he can to achieve greatness.

A corollary to the initial question is why did they big-shots even give the narrator a scholarship in the first place? The scholarship was mostly given as a token reward to a black man who didn’t ask questions, did what we was supposed to, and provided them with a night of good entertainment. The narrator’s propensity to acquiesce to the white man can be seen when he retracts his comment about “social equality” (82). The M.C. then says to the narrator that “you’ve got to know your place at all times” (92), his place of course being subservient to the white man. And a final reason for the scholarship is stated in the narrators dream, to “keep this nigger-boy running” (106) As a major point of the entire story, the white man simply is looking for ways to keep the black man running around and not doing anything that would threaten the established way of life. (627)