White Insanity in Two Guises: Battle Royal vs. The Rose

Paper Summary:

This paper scrutinizes authors Faulkner and Ellison's works, including 'Invisible Man' and 'A Rose for Emily,' which seem at first glance to indicate that the authors are showing very different pictures of the South's culture. But ultimately it is shown that they both portray faces of white insanity, one in a lower-class, repressive treatment of blacks, and the other in an upper-class, repressive treatment of their own.

From the Paper:

The culture of white and black in the post-Confederate, pre-Civil Rights South is a culture where black people are a race considered not much good for anything but the slavery from which they may have been "officially" freed, but in fact still practice to some extent or other in serving the white "Bosses." Thus, the whites' treatment of the boys in "Battle Royal" isn't brutality in their eyes, but sport. The black boys are objects, curiosities and toys, and the white men aim to get their money's worth out of those toys. When the "Battle Royal" is over and the boys are given their "reward," even that is booby-trapped as part of the game?money is placed on an electrified carpet, where it's impossible to claim the reward without injury.

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