The blonde, who has a tattoo of the American flag on her lower belly, represents the way in which white women have been used as sexual objects and how their status as both sexual objects and symbols of American femininity have contributed to the oppression of black men.
Both the black men participating in the Battle Royal and the white woman in the ring are exploited objects of erotic obsession. The white male spectators enjoy watching the black men experience attraction to the white woman. However, the black men are also afraid of expressing attraction to the blonde around the white male spectators, due to such attraction being forbidden to black men. This manipulation contributes to the sexual hegemony of white men, which has historically resulted in white men's control of both black men and white women and their unmitigated access to the bodies of white women, as well as to those of black men and black women.
Ellison uses the Battle Royal as a visual symbol of everyone's victimization in a system in which white men are dominant.
In "Battle Royal," chapter 1 of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, young black men are forced to fight each other for the entertainment of a crowd of wealthy white men. As the fighters are pushed into the room where they will "entertain" the crowd, they notice the "magnificent blonde" (19) in the center of the room. She is "stark naked," and the narrator "was strongly attracted and looked in spite of himself" (19). The narrator goes on to describe the blonde woman in more detail; her hair color seems artificial and she is heavily made-up. He describes her face as "an abstract mask, the eyes hollow but smeared a cool blue, the color of a baboon's butt" (19). This description is telling because it highlights her sexuality, but it also describes something animalistic about her (probably because she is basically treated as such); further, her face indicates that she is detached.
The narrator looks at her closely and carefully and describes her body in detail, but his reaction is complicated. He confesses, "I wanted at one and the same time to run from the room, to sink through the floor, or go to her and cover her from my eyes and the eyes of others with my body; to feel the soft thighs, to caress her and destroy her, to love her and murder her, to hid from her, and yet to stroke [her]" (19). He feels both attracted and repulsed. He cannot deny her sexuality, yet he instinctively knows there is something wrong about the way she is treated. He feels both superior to her as a man and protective of her as a fellow oppressed person.
The blonde "begins to dance" in a "slow sensuous" manner" (19). As the boys are goaded by the men, she continues to dance. Eventually, she is grabbed by the men in the audience and "tossed" as she tries to leave the room. The narrator describes her face in the following way: "I saw the terror and disgust in her eyes, almost like my own terror and that which I saw in some of the other boys" (20). The narrator recognizes in the blonde's face similar emotions to what he feels; he identifies with her. He realizes that they are both objects of entertainment for these rich white men. This is a starting point for the narrator's understanding of his position in the world as a young black man. It takes several more episodes, however, for the full force of his oppression to sink in.
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