Ralph Ellison

Ralph Ellison

A PARTY DOWN AT THE SQUARE
Ralph Ellison adopts the voice of white "spectator" at a public lynching in "A Party Down at the Square." The title is deceptive with dark irony, as the story documents with sickening detail a "Bacote nigger" burning alive. While the narrator himself is slightly less jaded than many in the crowd, his failure to truly recognize the horror of watching a fellow human being torturously murdered for entertainment propels Ellison's message. The physical setting of the story, while remaining vague, is certainly Southern, the Cincinnati nephew ignorant of what his uncle means when he says there's going to be a "party in the square." The night is bitterly cold, the wind blowing and a freezing rain falling. The "spectators" seem basically immune to the miserable conditions, as the square is crowded with people, all pushing to get a closer look. A statue of a general, presumably a Confederate general of the Civil War, looks down on the scene, condoning the continuation of battle it represents. In fact, the narrator notices at one point in the story that the general seems to be "smiling" down on the burning man. Cars and horses line the square, some having traveled from other communities to view the lynching. And the crowd is not composed solely of men, but of women who are as unfazed by the gruesome violence as the men. The platform on which the burning man is tied is directly in front of the courthouse and the "sheriff and his men" stand by, nothing illegal occurring in their eyes. In fact, the most callous racist of the crowd, the only individual named, in fact, Jed Wilson, is "right popular with the folks" and will be a candidate for sheriff within a year. The single-mindedness of the crowd and the repulsiveness and modern presence of racism in its most horrific extreme is Ellison's emphasis. Distracted by the blazing bonfire, a TWA plane flies low, looking as if it is bound to crash land, if not in the square then certainly...