A Simple Square
...is war...” (196). This is proof that not only is life war, but it is also like a battle. His grandfather seems to say that the black man’s whole life will be spent in the boxing ring, trying his hardest to fight a good fight, trying at all times to get out of the boxing ring, but admitting that it will be a long time untill that will be possible. Ellison says that these very words haunted the main character all his life, like a curse. This shows that fighting was always on the main character’s mind. Not at all times in a literal sense but in the broad sense that he will have to fight for whatever it is he wants out of life. This is why it seems that the main character is not taken aback when he learns that he is going to participate in the battle royal. The battle royal is just the beginning of fighting the good fight. The first mention of an actual boxing ring is when the main character describes the location he is meant to give his speech. He tells us “Chairs were arranged in neat rows around three sides of a portable boxing ring” (197). This idea of something that can be set up and moved wherever needed is rather interesting. This shows how the whole idea of oppression and racism can be encountered anywhere. Oppression can root its ugly head in a new city, in one’s school, in church, and even in the privacy of ones home. It is portable; it could be there one day and not be there the next. Further in the text, the main character says, “I had some misgivings about the battle royal, by the way. Not from a distaste for fighting…” (197). This strengthens the idea that Ellison is suggesting that black peoples’ lives are a constant fight and that the main character knows this and is ready to fight for it. Another tool used to strengthen the oppression of any group of people is the process of denying a proper education to the oppressed. The idea is that unintelligent people will not figure out how to revolt. Ellison seems to draw another parallel between the real world of oppression and the symbolic world of the boxing ring by stating, “All ten of us climbed under the ropes and allowed ourselves to be blindfolded with broad bands of white cloth” (200). Ellison could be writing about how black people allowed this forced illiteracy to dominate the black community. He seems to suggest that his people have a choice to become literate or stay oppressed. The main character mentions that it was a white cloth that they are blindfolded with. This is symbolic of the fact that white America has employed the age old tool of illiteracy to oppress black America. Being a black in America and trying to obtain education was almost equivalent of being blindfolded. Isolation was another common feeling among black people in the 1930’s. There was a sense that made one feel that they were fighting against oppression all alone. It was this feeling that made it so difficult to fight at times. Ellison seems to touch upon this idea of isolation on page 200 when the main character says, “So many blows landed upon me that I wondered if I were not the only blindfolded fighter in the ring, or if the man called Jackson hadn’t succeeded in getting me after all.” The main character felt alone in the ring, although he does know that all of the fighters are blindfolded. Once again the boxing ring is shown to represent a huge world of oppression, and the main character is just trying to survive in it. This passage also represents the idea that during the fight against racism it feels as though one gets hit in every direction. The blows of oppression rain down upon the black people one after another. It is very similar to a boxer losing a boxing match. Every time he gets up, he gets knocked back down again. Despair is shown in this passage also. The main character thinks that possibly the man Jackson finally did get him. It is almost a feeling of giving up, similar to the thought process that the...