Comparing My Papa's Waltz And Battle Royal By Ralph Ellison

1062 Words3 Pages

They say never judge a book by its cover but I have found myself to do just that. My experience with literature has been roughly the same all throughout my life, if I see a good book then I’ll read it. But if it is something boring or I am being forced to read it then I will not read it. For instance, if someone handed me a Harry Potter book there would be no problem. However, hand me a textbook then it is a completely different story. All throughout grade school it was the same especially when it came to stories like “Romeo and Juliet” and “Hamlet”. This can be tied to an earlier article we read about college kids avoiding literature, because they are forced to care about stories that we are told are so great. But in reality I feel as if I will always have this mind set about literature, because nothing I have read has changed my mind. …show more content…

The two stories that I choose to read were “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke and “Battle Royal” by Ralph Ellison a short excerpt from a novel titled “The Invisible Man”. I chose these two because they were the two that stuck out the most to me. From “My Papas Waltz” countless of ways to interpret it, to “The Invisible Man’s” coverage over a very heated topic such as race. And of course me being a black male made the latter stand out even more. So I think it is just right that I start off with that

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