Literary Analysis On The Black Ball

673 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Research in african american literature

Literary Analysis on “The Black Ball”
In Ellison’s “The Black Ball,” the author develops the narrator who is an African American who works in a lobby. He’s an educated man who’s doing lower class work. He and his son live in the garage there and they encounter several acts of racism throughout the story. Ellison uses the symbolism of a black ball as the battle that African Americans had to endure on a daily basis. We can find the examples of racism specifically in the beginning and the end of the story.
A boy who was older than John’s son bullies the boy by pointing out his race and framing him for something. The boy faces trouble with the other white kids who live in the community. “ “Well yesterday Jackie said I was so black.” ( The Black …show more content…

He only see’s John for his work and looks specifically at the materialistic things. For Berry to be pleased with John, the bronze must be polished before he arrives to work and he must keep the lawn watered. The boss only seems interested in his brass, his plants, and his money. The first paragraph puts heavy supports the statement. “I had rushed through the early part of the day mopping the lobby, placing fresh sand in the tall green jars, sweeping and dusting the halls, and emptying the trash to be burned later on in the day into the incinerator.” ( The Black Ball, page 344. ) And once Berry arrives at the office, he doesn’t even look at John. He looks at the work John has …show more content…

“ He had already played with the ball; that he would discover later. He was learning the rules of the game already, but he didn’t know it. Yes, he would play with the ball. Indeed, poor little rascal, he would play until he grew sick of playing. My, yes, the old ball game. But I’d begin telling him the rules later. My hand was still burning from the scratch as I dragged the hose out to water the lawn, and looking down at the iodine stain, I thought of the fellow’s fried hands, and felt in my pocket to make sure I still had the card he had given me. Maybe there was a color other than white on the old ball.” ( The Black Ball, page 352 ) He refers to the racism that his son will face as a ball game and that he, too, will grow tired from playing it. It’s a statement that has a lot of hidden resentment and an almost sad tone. John doesn’t want his son to face this prejudice, but he also sees some hope in this white

Show More
Related

  • Friday Night Lights Essay Topics

    1011 Words  | 3 Pages

    He says "“I work not only for the gathering and assimilation of knowledge, but also to teach the fact that one can be brilliant without being arrogant, that great intellectual capacity brings great responsibility, that the quest for knowledge should never supplant the joy of learning, that one with great capacities must learn to be tolerant and appreciate those with lesser or different absolutes,”(Basinger). Stressing that the issues of race in a sense are all physiological, he believes in the way football is a metaphor for race, those with lesser abilities are seen lesser whereas, in Odessa, those who are black are seen as beneath those who are white. He believes education and knowledge not athletic ability is the only way to prevent arrogance and promote tolerance not only racially but in all

    Read More

  • Comparing Ralph Ellison's The Black Ball And Why, You Reckon?

    535 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ellison explores the detrimental effect that racism has on a person. John reflects while conversing with the fellow in the lobby,“That part wasn't missing. When they did have something to say to us, they always became familiar” (Ellison 345). As John continues to talk to the fellow in the lobby, he begins to feel a sense of insecurity, “'Any other colored folks working here?' 'I’m the only one,' I lied. There were two others. It was none of his business anyway” (Ellison 345). In “The Black Ball” Ellison uses dialogue to convey a theme of racism. The word “they” is used to represent white people, and the word “us” to represent African Americans. Even in the writing they are segregated, furthering the point that John is not given equal opportunities or even treated with basic civilities. Because of the racism that John has been subjected to, he has developed a sense of mistrust. He feels the need to lie to the fellow because he does not trust him, and he feels his job might be in jeopardy. By adding details like these to the plot,

    Read More

  • The Great Migration: A Fatalistic Attempt at Self-Determination

    2188 Words  | 5 Pages

    In The Sport of the Gods, Paul Laurence Dunbar presents a naturalistic look at African American life during turn of the century. This novel is centered on the “Great Migration” which was the decided shift of the black community from the rural South to the urban North beginning in the early 1900s. Dunbar uses the Hamilton family to represent the false sense of agency African Americans possessed within the post-Reconstruction society. The characters within the family are constantly attempting to better their conditions through appearance, relationships, and eventually treachery, but they are powerless in the strict social confines of the Rural South, and even more so to the tumultuousness of the Urban North. In the end of the story, the family is destroyed but their unfortunate dissolution can then implicate readers and become a catalyst for change and unification within the African American community.

    Read More

  • Discriminatory Rhetoric in Athletics

    2475 Words  | 5 Pages

    On April 15th 1947, Jack Roosevelt Robinson played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Jackie, went without a hit in a game which would have been noted only in sports almanacs were it not for the color of his skin. At Ebbet's Field that day, Robinson broke baseball's “color barrier.” The integration of Black athletes into White mainstream sports had begun. Robinson endured a variety of slanderous yells, racial epithets and even hurled objects. The fact that African Americans would be discriminated against in sports was never more apparent. Today, that same vitriol manifests itself in various forms of discrimination. Rhetorical forms of discrimination are just as damaging today as outright bigotry was then. Though rhetorical racism is not as overt, it continually influences an audience that is largely unaware of its existence.

    Read More

  • Justifying Evil for Good is Cruel

    902 Words  | 2 Pages

    Murphy expresses how justifying bad deeds for good is cruel by first stirring the reader’s emotions on the topic of bullying with pathos. In “White Lies,” Murphy shares a childhood memory that takes the readers into a pitiful classroom setting with Arpi, a Lebanese girl, and the arrival of Connie, the new girl. Murphy describes how Arpi was teased about how she spoke and her name “a Lebanese girl who pronounced ask as ax...had a name that sounded too close to Alpo, a brand of dog food...” (382). For Connie, being albino made her different and alone from everyone else around her “Connie was albino, exceptionally white even by the ultra-Caucasian standards... Connie by comparison, was alone in her difference” (382). Murphy tries to get the readers to relate and pity the girls, who were bullied for being different. The author also stirs the readers to dislike the bullies and their fifth grade teacher. Murphy shares a few of the hurtful comments Connie faced such as “Casper, chalk face, Q-Tip... What’d ya do take a bath in bleach? Who’s your boyfriend-Frosty the Snowman?” (382). Reading the cruel words can immediately help one to remember a personal memory of a hurtful comment said to them and conclude a negative opinion of the bullies. The same goes for the fifth grade teac...

    Read More

  • James Baldwin's Stranger in the Village

    892 Words  | 2 Pages

    Baldwin and his ancestors share this common rage because of the reflections their culture has had on the rest of society, a society consisting of white men who have thrived on using false impressions as a weapon throughout American history. Baldwin gives credit to the fact that no one can be held responsible for what history has unfolded, but he remains restless for an explanation about the perception of his ancestors as people. In Baldwin?s essay, his rage becomes more directed as the ?power of the white man? becomes relevant to the misfortune of the American Negro (Baldwin 131). This misfortune creates a fire of rage within Baldwin and the American Negro. As Baldwin?s American Negro continues to build the fire, the white man builds an invisible wall around himself to avoid confrontation about the actions of his ?forefathers? (Baldwin 131). Baldwin?s anger burns through his other emotions as he writes about the enslavement of his ancestors and gives the reader a shameful illusion of a Negro slave having to explai...

    Read More

  • Being Biracial-Personal Narrative

    891 Words  | 2 Pages

    I was late for school, and my father had to walk me in to class so that my teacher would know the reason for my tardiness. My dad opened the door to my classroom, and there was a hush of silence. Everyone's eyes were fixed on my father and me. He told the teacher why I was late, gave me a kiss goodbye and left for work. As I sat down at my seat, all of my so-called friends called me names and teased me. The students teased me not because I was late, but because my father was black. They were too young to understand. All of this time, they thought that I was white, because I had fare skin like them, therefore I had to be white. Growing up having a white mother and a black father was tough. To some people, being black and white is a contradiction in itself. People thought that I had to be one or the other, but not both. I thought that I was fine the way I was. But like myself, Shelby Steele was stuck in between two opposite forces of his double bind. He was black and middle class, both having significant roles in his life. "Race, he insisted, blurred class distinctions among blacks. If you were black, you were just black and that was that" (Steele 211).

    Read More

  • The Innocence Of Man Exposed In The Black Ball By Ralph Ellison

    861 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the Black Ball, John was so disillusioned that he did not know what to do when a white man was friendly to him. “Not used to anything like that, are you? ... Fellow like me offering a fellow like you something besides a rope” (Ellison, 346). John’s mindset was so ingrained in the accepted terms that the black man was inferior to the white man, that he automatically refused a nice offer from a white man. He was so disillusioned and passive that he never imagined that a white man would be good to him. Contrarily, in Young Goodman Brown, Brown had the mindset that those in the church and in his community that had high standing were pure and holy on the inside as well as out. When the evil older gentleman with him said that he had a close acquaintance with many of the high and important people in the country, Goodman Brown cried out, “Can this be so?’… with a stare of amazement at his undisturbed companion” (Hawthorne, 58). When young Goodman Brown’s mindset was disproved, he became disillusioned, and when John’s mindset was disproved, it revealed his

    Read More

  • Stereotypes and Stereotyping in Invisble Man

    459 Words  | 1 Pages

    Ellison creates many stereotypes of African Americans of his time. He uses this to bring less informed readers to understand certain characters motives, thoughts, and reasoning. By using each personality of an African American in extremes, Ellison adds passion to the novel, a passion that would not be there if he would let individualism into his characters. Individualism, or lack there of is also significant to the novel. It supports his view of an anti-racial America, because by using stereotypes he makes his characters racial these are the characters that the Americans misunderstand and abominate.

    Read More

  • The Historiography of Race and Discrimination in Baseball and Sports

    3242 Words  | 7 Pages

    Shropshire, Kenneth L. 1996. In black and white: race and sports in America. New York: New York University Press.

    Read More

  • Prejudice in "King of the Bingo Game"

    949 Words  | 2 Pages

    The main character is completely alienated from the world around him. He is a black man living in a white world, a man who was born in the South but is now living in the North, and his only form of companionship is his dying wife, Laura, whom he is desperate to save. He is unable to work since he has no birth certificate—no official identity. Without a job he is unable to make his mark in the world, and if his wife dies, not only would he lose his lover but also any evidence that he ever existed. As the story progresses he loses his own awareness of his identity—“somehow he had forgotten his own name.” The author emphasizes the main character’s mistreatment in life by white society during a vivid recollection of an event in his childhood when he was chased by a train filled with “white people laughing as he ran screaming,” a hallucination which was triggered by his exploration of the “old scars” on his body. This connection between alienation and oppression highlight Ellison’s central idea.

    Read More

  • Discrimination And Symbolism In The Black Ball By Ralph Ellison

    1259 Words  | 3 Pages

    The little’s boys white ball represents innocence compared to the Black ball which represents struggle, humiliation, and discrimination. In other parts of the story white represents the white men of the world. “Yes, son,” I said “your ball is white.” Mostly white anyway I thought.”Pg 352. When John thinks this he is saying that his son is innocent at least partially innocent, in that he has not learned what it means to be black. Being a Negro was something that you had to live with, and in the story Black Ball, John says “yes, he would play with the ball. Indeed, poor little rascal, he would play until he grew sick of playing.” What he means by this is that his son will have to continue dealing with the fact and difficulties that he is black and all the problems that come with it. There are three main color in this story, black, white, and red which represents wrath. At the end John thinks “maybe there was a color other than white on the old ball.” Pg 352 when he says this I think he is referring to the fact that maybe there is room for blacks in the world of the white people without

    Read More

  • Athleticism

    1159 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ind of black humanity. This actor performed feats of brute, physical, endurance, and ‘natural’ prowess which would place him in a category of animalistic sub-humanity. The assumed all body and no mind position of many of the African Diaspora. However within the sanctuary of modern sport, these feats became exceptionally superhuman; a show of raw masculinity and rational dexterity. As a political act, Johnson’s defeat of his white component sent ripples thought the world and attacked the foundation on which the very system that subordinated him was built. Using Carrington’s sense of the sporting black Atlantic. We can fully understand the significance and ramification of this feat. We can come to understand the global implications of this win for black people and see Jackson's “diasporic politicization” and his rise as an “anti white supremacist figure (p. 18)”.

    Read More

  • Racism In Sports Essay

    1193 Words  | 3 Pages

    The scholars expounds that Black athletes were commodities on the playing field to help win games and bring in revenue to their respected schools. However, the schools were just as eager and willing to leave their Black players behind and dishonoring the player as a part of the team. Therefore, not compromising the team’s winning and bring in profits for the school. Sadly, Black athletes at predominately White institutions (PWIs) who believed that they were bettering the live of themselves and their families members by going to college and playing collegiate sports to increase their post secondary careers. However, these athletes were only “show ponies” for their schools. Unfortunately, Black athletes had allegiance to their school; however, the school turned their backs on the athletes to protect the profit and notoriety of the school and the programs. Money and respect from White fans and spectators were more important to the PWIs than standing up for the respect of their Black players. Racial bigotry in sports was rampant and it was only going to get worse.

    Read More

  • The Black Ball By Ralph Ellison Analysis

    782 Words  | 2 Pages

    “We must learn to live together, as brothers or we will perish as fools”, “The Black Ball”, by Ralph Ellison written to capture a glimpse of a father to a most curious four year old that has a curious mind about the life that surrounds him, much of humanity and the black ball.

    Read More

More about Literary Analysis On The Black Ball

Open Document