ou will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppet.This boy and all like him live in a white dominated society (the cave), and the white men in the society can be seen as the puppeteers. In his society the black people are chained down in a reality in which the white dominating society imposes certain morals or principles by which the black community needs to act. However unlike the people around him, he is able to break the chains that imprison his mind and see how things really work. He first gets a true sense in what kind of society he lives when he is invited to give his graduation speech at Battle Royal. Battle Royal is a sort of a barbarous boxing mach in which black boys with blindfolds are forced to fight each other for the entertainment of certain town's men. Our hero is also made to participate in this activity. "I was shocked to see some of the most important men of the town quite tipsy." he says when he sees who is there, " They were all there-bankers, lawyers, judges, doctors, fire chiefs, teachers, merchants. Even one of the more fashionable pastors." (450). After the fight, in front of that drunk and perverted crowd of white influential males he is going to present his graduation speech, a speech that address "Social responsibility"(457).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 ...
