Thursday, September 20, 2012
Boxing vs Brawling
As I was reading chapter 16, I noticed their was a brief interlude in the narrative where the narrator realizes that this is the arena where a famous boxer lost his sight during a fight. It had a number of similarities to the battle royal, and as I was thinking about that I found another reference to boxing in Bledsoe's office. These references to boxing have parallels to each other, the opposite of which are the examples of brawling in the book.
All three of the references to society come while the narrator is in "high society." The battle royal is filled with rich white people, Blesoe's office is beautifully decorated, and the narrator is about to give a speech in a sports arena. This is not entirely unexpected given that boxing is seen as a sort of noble sport (back in that time period), the kind of thing respectable, high society men would enjoy. The battle royal folks, Bledsoe, and the Brotherhood certainly fit that image. The fighter's themselves do not always fit this, but the spectators do. So it comes as something of a surprise when all of the mentions of boxing have some sense of unfairness to them that undermines their appearance of nobility. In the battle royal, the narrator can see through his blindfold while the other boys cannot (25). In Bledsoe's office, Bledsoe tells the narrator "Your arms are too short to box with me. And I haven't really had to clip a Negro in year" (129). Bledsoe uses boxing language here to show how refined he is, but he says it is not a fair fight. And while the narrator is in the boxing arena, he remembers a story his dad told him about a prizefighter losing his sight in a "crooked" fight (290).
Contrast these seemingly noble but unfair boxing scenes to the scenes of brawling that take place in the book. The three attention-getting brawls in the book are the one between Trueblood and his wife, the one between the narrator and Brockway, and the one between the narrator, Clifton, and Ras. The conflict between Trueblood and his wife is not really a brawl, but I included it for comparison's sake. In contrast to the boxing scenes, the brawling scenes are in settings of low society. Trueblood and his wife tangle in a sharecroppers cabin. The narrator and Brockway scuffle in the basements of a paint factory, and the two Brothers tussle with Ras in a dark Harlem street. This is somewhat to be expected, since brawling is one behavior that would make people low society. However, honorable things happen in all of the brawls. Trueblood realizes he has committed a great wrong and so instead of trying to fight back, he decides he deserves whatever punishment his wife gives him. His wife, also honorably, decides to spare his life. In the fight with Brockway, the narrator is content with merely defeating Brockway and doesn't try to hurt him, and even pities Brockway when he realizes Brockway's dentures are out. Perhaps the most honorable actions occur in the most violent of the fights. Just minutes after beating each other to a pulp, Ras decides to spare Clifton's life, and then the three of the have a comparably tame conversation about Harlem politics.
Through this contrast of boxing and brawling, Ellison is making a point that the constructed nobility of high society (like boxing) are in reality even wilder and less moral than the chaotic brawling of the lower class.
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Really interesting. I never really stopped to think about those kinds of connections but when you do, it really is interesting. In terms of fighting, boxing is a more upper class activity. Its regulated, shown on tv. Its like a sport. But a brawl is more like a scramble to win by whatever means necessary. Even if you have to bite someone with your dentures. But after, Ellison really makes you think that its taking a a step back but then taking 2 steps forward. You make progress even though you have to fight
ReplyDeleteBut there's also a potentially exploitative aspect to boxing that Ellison may be tapping into here (although the frequency with which he refers to boxing as a point of reference--with multiple examples of fighters' careers mentioned in the text--suggests that the author himself likely had some respect for the sport). Fighters tend to be ethnic minorities from the inner cities--whether Irish or Italian in the earlier 20th century, or black and Latino in the later--and the audiences tend . . . not to be. The spectacle of wild, inebriated, frothing-at-the-mouth powerful elites screaming and yelling as two black or brown men pound at each other in the ring maybe carries some latent uncomfortable signification? This is certainly the case with the Battle Royal (and we might draw analogies to the narrator giving his first speech before his onstage audience of "trainers" in a boxing arena!). The question is, if Ras and the narrator (and Tod) are being compelled to fight one another to destruction, who is the "audience"?
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