Seeing Light In A Tragic Situation
In literature comedy alone can create an unreal world, tragedy alone creates a depressing story, but when woven together they have the ability to convey a characters message, personality and identity. Comedy and tragedy are both coping mechanisms, which entail human weakness. “Comedy like tragedy, is a way of trying to cope with despair, mental suffering guilt and anxiety.” (Eric Bentley) When an author attempts to explain the complexities of a human being, many different characteristics tend to be explored. Since comedy and tragedy share many descriptive similarities an author may choose to use various tonal mixtures to portray the complexity of the characters identity. In Ellison’s “Battle Royal” and Salinger’s A Perfect Day for BananaFish the main character is dealing with tragedy and comedy in the search of their own identity. In both pieces of literature the tragic situations are long term (the big picture), while the comic situations are part of the smaller picture. In “Battle Royal” the Invisible Man doesn’t accept his identity as an African American in society and is being pulled around by the high profile white men, in the hopes of gaining their acceptance. Seymour, the main character in A Perfect Day for BananaFish is a shell-shocked character, failing to conform to life after war. Seymour unlike the Invisible Man has control over and is fully aware of the lighthearted comic moments in his life.
In “Battle Royal” Ellison utilizes the various writing techniques and tonal mixtures to deliver a message regarding African American culture. The Invisible Man is a story told through the eyes of the narrator, a Black man struggling in a White culture. The narrator is constantly wondering about who he really is, and evaluating different identities for himself. The narrator progresses from being a hopeful student with a bright future to being just another poor black laborer in New Your City to being a fairly well off...