Initially, the story seems to be about one black boy's struggle to get ahead in a predominately white society. He tries to accomplish this goal by adhering to his grandfather's dying words. His grandfather told him to "live with your head in the lion's mouth. I want you to overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree 'em to death and destruction, let 'em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open". In other words, his grandfather was telling him to conform to the white peoples way of life in order to get ahead. I believe that the story had a deeper meaning than the aforementioned one.

I believe that if the reader were to take a deeper look into all of the symbolism in the story, one would find that the summation of all the symbolism is equal to not only the struggle of this black boy, but the struggle of blacks at the time in which

Every time that a black person would get a leg up one the ladder of life, there was alwayssomeone there to knock them down. Even after all the toil and hardships endured, they were no better off then they were when they started. Which, was proved in the story, when they received all the shocks when trying to lift the money off the rug, then finding out that the money wasn't even real in the first place.

After all was done, the boy delivered his speech. During the speech the boy was tortured; people yelling at him, throwing nasty comments, and telling him to speak up constantly, even though he spoke quite forcefully. When he finally finished, the boy received a briefcase containing a scholarship to the state college for Negroes. This seemed like the white people were saying, "thanks for the entertainment here's your prize". Which pertains to the "puppet on a string" analogy.

each individual, but stereotyped a whole race as no good and as lesser beings simply for the color of their skin.

how much they were kept down by the whites, they kept their minds on their final goal,social equality.

Another important symbol in the story that helps piece my theory together, was the money rug. These boys were given the opportunity to make money by simply taking it off the rug, the only catch was that e

Some common words found in the essay are:
Battle Royal, , black americans, conform white, white society, blind hatred, conform white society, black person, dying words, puppet string, money rug, symbol story, struggle black,
Approximate Word count = 890
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)