Our hero's journey toward the light (truth) is started a long time ago. However in the beginning he is unable to get on the right course, due to the wrong advice he is given by different people; he says it as "All my life I was looking for something, and every were that I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction" (448). Because each time that he accepts their advice he is little by little pushed off the right track. It is not until he realizes that he is searching for himself, and instead of asking others questions, he needs to ask the questions to himself. Once he discovers whom to turn to, he begins a long and difficult journey in which he realizes that he is a unique person, he puts it as, "I am nobody but myself.

The physical battle that our hero is made to fight in shows us two important issues: First, how the black boys are kept down (socially) by being forced to fight against their own. This tactic of keeping your enemies fighting each other, so you can control them easier has been used numerous times in history. However the horrible things about Battle Royal is that the black boys except it morally, and think that it is alright for them to be treated as animals, some of them even look forward to the fight. The second issue that this battle raises is the mental struggle that our hero needs to overcome. In order for him to be allowed to give his graduation speech, he needs to overcome an obstacle by participating in a dehumanizing activity. This fight is one of the emotional struggles that he needs to conquer, like his grandfather says, "Live with your head in the lion's mouth overcome'em with yeses, undermine'em with grins, agree'em to death.., let'em swoller you till they vomit or burst wide open" (449) he needs to overcome this physical and mental struggle just so he can be heard giving a speech to people who for now think that he is just a small ant. They even give him a prize, a briefcase and a scholarship to a University.

At the end of the story we finally see how his morality becomes constant with the reality that he lives. The night after the Battle Royal he has a dream. In it he hears his grandfather give him instructions to read a note that is in the briefcase which was given to him as an award. The note read, "To Whom It May Concern, Keep this Nigger-Boy Running"(459) This is the point that he realizes that the nice things that he has been given is not for his benefit, but he is being bout with these gifts. From all this he now knows for a fact that he lives in a society that does not except him as a person, but rather more like an animal that does not disserve any human rights. Because this society is his reality, he now needs to alter his moral ideas so it will compliment his newly rea

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1353
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)