To look at the paintings of Charles W. White is to see black America in the early 1900s through the prism of a social realist. African-American novelist Ralph Ellison stood behind men and women, such as Charles White who used art to express his personal views on his experiences of being black in America (Heritage Gallery). “Most social realists of the time were less concerned with tragedy than with injustice,” Ellison said in a 1955 interview published in the Paris Review. “I was not, and am not, primarily concerned with injustice, but with art” (Chester 1955). Beginning in the late 1700s, black people began narrating and writing autobiographies in an attempt to create "in words, a portrait of a human being" and to combat the derogatory images prevalent in American visual art forms. (Gates, 1990). In his most famous short stories, "Battle Royal," Ellison takes social realism from art to pen and paper, reflecting on the conflicts of race, class, and gender that the narrator must confront as "a black man in white America.” In the story, the narrator, a young black high school graduate, realizes that he is an “invisible man.” The short story recounts the strange events that led to this realization. Shortly toward the end of his graduation, the narrator is asked to give his graduation speech at a gathering in front of upper-class whites who also lived in his small southern town. . Upon arrival, he and his classmates were unexpectedly thrust into a WWE Smackdown-style fight, against each other. Before the fight, a white exotic dancer dances closely in front of her classmates. The boys, filled with terror, are then blindfolded and forced to fight until only two remain. The narrator, who...... middle of paper ......d, exotic dancer. As the woman danced in front of the white men and black boys, “some of the boys stood with their heads down, trembling,” the narrator explained. (Meyer 279) This woman, as classless as she appears, is still “forbidden fruit” in the eyes of black men who hung their heads in shame and fear. Ellison uses social realism in this part of the story to bring to life the hierarchy of white men, women, and black men during this time. In conclusion, the story of “Battle Royal” embodies the issues of race, class, and gender between white America and America. black people who lived there and who spent most of their lives searching for their true identity. Arguably, expressions of social realism are evident strictly in the artistic form, but Ellison's thoughtful use of dialogue, imagery, and perception paints a vivid picture of racialized America in the 1930s and 1940..