Observation

Candidates were not able to link the event of the battle royal to the theme of invisibility. Many candidates merely explained the theme of invisibility as it relates to the larger story.

Candidates were expected to discuss the following:

• The theme of invisibility.
• Character identification: the battle royal is an ‘occasion of a smoker’; it takes place as entertainment for important Americans ‘in the ballroom of the leading hotel’; Ten blindfolded tough guys fight brutally in a ring to amuse the audience.
• White cloth is used to blindfold the boys; this symbolizes invisibility.
• The battle exemplifies a deliberate intention not to consider the narrator and the other boys as human beings.
• The narrator’s reference to ‘social equality’ and ‘responsibility’ is scoffed at and he is warned.
• The battle reinforces the white supremacist notion of black inferiority

Candidates presented shallow answers.