Blog Poste Quatre- @ l?_ -/--

first off, I resent the word "if" in this question: "if these short stories are art...". Literature is the greatest form of art because of its vast possibility for interpretation. Literature can appeal to any part of a person's soul and can do it in a much more complete way. I see it like this, visual art is like a wide plain for one's soul, where you can go anywhere, you can walk in circles, walk a straight line (which would be desired by the artist because undoubtedly their final ideal lies at the other end), one could even end up where they started. But with literature instead of having such a barren field, there are many different roads on which to travel, thus making it impossible to end up where one started. literatue changes your being, it takes you somewhere you were not before you read the piece. what is art? art is the vehicle for a souls travels down all 42 (bonus points for whomever gets that) of lifes roadways.

All of these stories are art, and Ellison's Battle Royal is really a perfect example.
The grotesque course of events is obviously a creative endeavor on Ellison's part, but is also an exercise for the reader, who has chance after chance to see the many layers of the story from their own mind's eye. in the background of the story, the reader can see the gala as a gala, but that is boring and shallow. Or with some work on the readers part, the gala can be a very real representation of white America, and can depict the greed and animalism of the white upper class. Or later when the main character lunges onto the electrifyed carpet to get money, it is not just an electifyied carpet, but a way of sybolizing the black people's struggle. A stuggle that never ends, and even when a prize is reached, it is dangerous to physically obtain. Devices such as this, the metaphoric imagism, and colors in the story, and brutal , disgusting situations are all ways to reach Ellison, the artist's, vision.

Also in Battle Royal, almost every single detail and action and diolouge is up for interpretation. Obviously, the story is meant to pertain to the black stuggle, but can safely be applied to any minority group. Battle Royal covers both the exploitation of the lower classes by the authority and the fight within the underclasses to rise just through the boxing match, and this is only one scene. A huge numbers of interpretations is one of more beautiful things about Literature, it can strike each reader differently, and even strike the same reader differently at different times. If one piece of of literature can capture and move one soul multiple times then surely it is art.