Battle Royal

This story made me sick. The blood and stripper scene were gross, but they didn't sicken me as much as the concept behind the whole show. The concept of this gathering of prominent people was almost surreal to me. The prominant, upstanding citizens of the town are actually slimy creeps who use women and black teenagers for entertainment. It was also almost unbelievable that the narrator plays right into their hands, always trying to say and do the things they want him to say and do. The narrator uses their potential approval to place himself above the other African American boys and thinks that only these men, who are treating him worse than an animal, can judge his ability.The woman was being taken advantage of by the men and used for their own selfish pleasure. Her "impersonal eyes" and "fixed-smiling lips" that were a cover for the "terror and disgust in her eyes" suggest that she knew she was being used and went along with it. The entire idea of the Battle Royal sickened me, and I was upset that everyone just went along with it. These prominant citizens are gathering together teenage boys, blindfolding them, and pitting them against each other to fight. The boys go along with it and beat the crap out of each other to please the white people. It's almost like a dog fight with humans instead of dogs.  Once again, these kids are pitted against each other for entertainment. The scene with the electrified rug was totally dehumanizing. How do you justify electrifying a group of teenage boys like that? It really disgusted me. Everything that occured before the speech made the speech ridiculous. The events before the speech showed what kind of "path" the audience wants the narrator to lead "his people" in. I related the clowns in the narrator's dream to the fighting. It seems the narrator knows that he and his classmates were made into clowns for the selfish purposes of the businessmen and that his grandfather would have been angry with him for going along with it.