"English 1302" Is Code For "Emotional Torture."

Speaking of starting off with a bang, my first paper (due on Sunday, but will be completed way, way before then, because: algebra) for English 1302 is a few paragraphs describing the characters, conflicts, plot and theme(s) of Ralph Ellison's "Battle Royal," which also happens to be the first chapter of his book The Invisible Man.  Which is about symbolically invisible men, not science experiments gone horribly wrong.

This story is horrible.

I don't mean that it's badly written or anything.  I mean that it's actually, literally, horrible.  It's about a nameless guy who gives a great speech at his high school graduation.  The speech is so great that all the white dudes in the town want him to come to a special event for just white dudes and say it all again.  When he gets to the Great White Dude Party, they tell him he has to participate in a "Battle Royal" which at first seems like it's going to be a boxing match with a bunch of other dudes our narrator knew in school, but actually turns out to be the most bizarre free-for-all I have ever read, and I have read Anita Blake Vampire Slayer books.  There's a naked white lady with an American flag tattoo on her belly who dances to a clarinet song (???) while all the white dudes alternately tell them to look and not look at her.  I'm not exactly clear what happens to the naked white girl.  The white dudes do like a "hip-hip-hooray!" thing, throwing her up in the air seemingly without the use of blankets, (which renders any and all Winnie the Pooh stories I have ever read absolute bullshit - they're famous for using blankets to hip-hip-hooray people into the air.  Turns out you don't need blankets, Christopher Robin, you girl-shoed moron.) and then she seems to disappear or something.  So this bunch of black dudes with raging hard-ons and panic attacks are all blindfolded and then they have to fight each other.  After the fighting is over, the white dudes toss a bunch of money on a rug and tell the black dudes to go get it, but the rug is electrified.  WTF?  And then the narrator gets a chance to say his speech (most of it cribbed from Booker T. Washington, but apparently that's okay?), but he's all bloody from the fight and pretty much fucking miserable but for some reason really gung-ho to say his speech.  The white dudes make fun of him but then they're all naaah, we were just shittin' you and they give him a briefcase with a scholarship to college in it.

W.T.F.

I'm supposed to write about this?  I hate this.  It's horrible.  I realize it's metaphor, but I have a sneaking suspicion that somebody somewhere actually did this shit, and now it's a thing.  I feel like my eyes, and indeed my brain, have been violated.

I'm also supposed to write about "Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck, which was boring as hell - a farm wife gets scammed by a tinker.  Well, duh, honey, that's what tinkers do.  And it took twelve pages to say so.

There were other stories I was supposed to read for this section.  Any one of those stories would have been easier to write about (I actually really enjoyed "A&P" by John Updike), except one.  There was one in the group that was just as bad as "Battle Royal."  It's called "The Lottery" and it's by Shirley Jackson.

It's about a small town that does a lottery every year.  Why?  Because they've always done it, that's why.  And what do you think that lottery is for?

IT'S TO FIGURE OUT WHO TO STONE TO DEATH, THAT'S WHAT.

I totally get the point.  Some people have stupid traditions that they just keep doing because it's always been done that way.  I get it.  But the fact that I was forced to read the anxiety of these people as we go through the lottery makes me want to spit on somebody in public.

Has anybody ever written a short story that is well-written and uplifting?  Does any conflict ever end with people shaking hands and maybe going to get ice cream together?  I completely understand that humankind is a cesspit, but for the love of beans, do they have to keep reminding me?  Can't I read about ponies or something?  Instead, we have a dude who quit his job at the A&P because some girls came into the store in their bathing suits and got the stinkeye and a comment from the manager, one where a woman finds out her husband is dead in a railroad accident and just as she realizes she's free, she finds out it was a terrible mistake and he's alive, so she drops dead from the disappointment and one about a little girl who can only afford Barbies that come from a fire sale.  I'm surprised none of the stories were written by Margaret Freakin' Atwood.  Or Eeyore.  What the hell is wrong with the American short story author?

Beyond all that, I have to keep contemplating horrible fictional (?) events while creaking open the rusty trunk in my mind that holds things such as "theme," "motif," "conflict," etc.  It's an uncomfortable fucking place, and it's making me wonder if I shouldn't quiz all of my potential professors before I register for their classes.  "True or false: 'I will force you to read traumatizing short stories on the very first day of class.'  Be warned that an answer of 'true' could lead to me finding an English professor with a shred of humanity left in them."

I will persevere.  I will write an awesome piece about this story that was scraped off the bottom of somebody's shoe.  And I will do it today, because I refuse to think about this any longer than I have to.