Sunday, July 30, 2017

Who are the main characters in the story "A Party Down at the Square"?

This story by Ralph Ellison is told in the first person by an unnamed narrator, who recounts experiences he had as a northern boy visiting relatives in the south. The other main character is his Uncle Ed, who urges him to go to the “party” and afterward, when he feels sick, mocks him as a “gutless wonder.” Most of the other characters, or “folks,” are members of the crowd that has gathered in the square to torture and kill an African American man. The boy constantly refers to this man, also unnamed, with the N-word. He refers to the white male adults as both “men” and “boys”; he also mentions thirty-five women. One man with a truck is named as Jed Wilson; he later makes cruel jokes and throws gasoline on the fire, and he even takes some of the dead man’s bones as souvenirs. The boy estimates there were forty cars around the square. When the plane comes swooping through off course, the pilot is mentioned. When the plane hits the power lines, a woman is electrocuted and another woman screams. The narrator reveals that law enforcement had been present all along, as he mentions what “the sheriff and his deputies” do to move the crowd away from the lines.
https://classic.esquire.com/article/1997/1/1/a-party-down-at-the-square

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