Ralph Waldo Ellison (1914 – 1994) was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man (1952). Battle Royal was published in 1947 and became the opening chapter of The Invisible Man. Ellison begins Battle Royal with the narrator talking about his grandparents who believed they were separate but equal during white segregation. The narrator's grandfather was known as a gentle and quiet person since his freedom from slavery. It was only on his deathbed that grandfather decided to honestly talk about his lifelong feelings. He spoke bitterly to the narrator's father, comparing the lives of black Americans to war, and admitted that he felt like a traitor. With “yes” and “smiles,” the grandfather wanted to weaken the whites and told his family to “consent them to death and destruction.” As an adult, the narrator also lives docilely; receiving praise from white society and invitations to speak. At high school graduation, the narrator gives a speech urging humility and submission as the key to the progress of black Americans. It proves to be such a success that the town arranges for him to deliver it to a gathering of the community's leading white citizens. During the event, the narrator is told to take part in a "battle royal". In the battle royal, the narrator and some of his classmates, who are also black, are subjected to physical and mental torture as they are forced to fight for various powerful elite white male individuals within the community. When it comes time for the narrator's speech, all the white men laugh, ignore him, and applaud him loudly as he finishes his speech. The men give him a calfskin briefcase and... in the center of a sheet of paper... the narrator may be experienced and knowledgeable, the white citizens would not accept the individual he is and would classify him with the others black Americans who participated in the battle royal. Their actions throughout the opening chapter explain their intentions to ignore the narrator for the individual he might be, but to demonize him for the color of his skin. Emerson believes that self-sufficiency comes from within the individual, rather than from society. Although the narrator is born into this terrible situation, "no nutritious corn kernels" will come from the white citizens but from his unique individualistic mentality. The grandfather's individualism is also represented at the beginning of "Battle Royale". His meekness and quiet personality were a facade used only to deceive the white citizens he dealt with on a daily basis.