Bill Cosby, an influential black voice in America, says he doesn't "know the key to success, but the key to failure is to trying to please everyone.” Ralph Ellison illustrates in the first chapter of his work The Invisible Man, "Battle Royal", that even after eighty-five years of freedom from slavery, the desire of black people to conform to the silence and continue to satisfying everyone's needs except their own allows white people to continue to use and define black people for their own purposes, which has prevented them from moving forward and living the American dream. "Battle Royal" tells the story of how self-sacrificing flaws are the causes of a young black boy's struggle to overcome the dehumanizing treatment of white people, which prevents him from determining his identity and achieving equality social in his quest to realize the American dream. .“Battle Royal” expresses the need to rediscover one’s identity to access one’s potential. The black narrator seeks to find himself but only succeeds when he perceives himself as “an invisible man” (Ellison 227). As a first-person narrator, he provides insight into his character's thoughts and feelings while giving his personal perspective on the actions he experiences. This access creates a feeling of sympathy because he is an African American experiencing this dehumanizing struggle. This narrative method also allows him to not apologize for his faults. He constantly thinks about who to please. Whether to comply with his grandfather's wish to "keep up the good fight" or to act in opposition to white people (227). The narrator blames his grandfather by claiming that his self-effacing actions to please white people "in spite of" himself (Ellison 227) are his grandfather's "curse" (Ellison 228) rather than...... middle of paper . ....in his dream his grandfather tells him to open the briefcase and read the letter that says "To whom it may concern, make this nigger-boy run" and he wakes up to his grandfather's laughter father (Ellison 236). Although he has his purse, the satisfaction of his goal is not complete. White society constantly makes African Americans believe that they have a chance and that there is still hope, and so they thrive on that hope that is always under the control of white society. White people will always exploit him and African Americans, and they will always struggle to achieve and be someone of social equality. He and white society perceive him as an invisible man. It's about a man versus himself conflict and the realization that he is running from himself and will continue to run blindly if he continues to allow society to demoralize his identity...