55 pages • 1 hour read
Ralph EllisonKing of the Bingo Game
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1944A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Character Analysis
The Protagonist
The protagonist is an adult Black man living in a relatively unfamiliar city. He attends the same movie theater and plays bingo there regularly as part of “Bank Night,” a trend which arose during the Great Depression. He enjoys the movie, but having the bingo game take place after the film means that he and the other the people in the audience have to buy movie tickets in order to play the game. Many rely on playing bingo in the hopes of winning money for their life expenses, but to do so, they must also pay to watch the movie. The protagonist does not make note of the connection. Early in the story he says, “But they had it all fixed, Everything was fixed” (470). He is referring to the setup of the projector and the screen, but the phrase has thematic resonance.
Feelings of desperation and delusion define the protagonist. Poverty, isolation, hopelessness, and shame make him unable to relax. During the film, he becomes sexually aroused, but the memory of a bedbug that he saw on a woman’s neck kill the feeling. Fear and doubt accompany activities that might otherwise be enjoyable.
The protagonist’s circumstances push him past a psychological breaking point. The story’s events suggest that the causes are the extreme pressure, hunger, and emotional turmoil that he experiences, not only in the moment but over a long period of time. Since we only encounter the protagonist under these circumstances, Ellison leaves it to the reader to determine whether his state is entirely due to his experiences or whether he was unstable to begin with.
Laura
Laura does not appear in the story, but she likely is the protagonist’s wife, girlfriend, or female relative. Earning money for Laura’s medical care is the protagonist’s main motivation, and he worries about the worst-case scenario if he cannot acquire the funds.
Laura is a symbolic character who represents the happiness and companionship that is always slightly out of reach. Too many obstacles exist for the protagonist to have a happy, peaceful life with the person he cares about. The story’s ending is tragic both because is the protagonist beaten and because the prize money would have been more than enough to pay for Laura’s medical bills. A windfall of that amount could have changed his life, but in the story’s world, a Black person cannot win such a prize, even when it is rightly his.
Laura could be characterized as a damsel in distress. While the protagonist is a three-dimensional character, she is defined by her illness and her need to be saved. The reader does not learn any other details about Laura. Her situation is no less tragic because we know that, as a Black woman, she is subject to the same level of discrimination as the protagonist, perhaps more, which could influence her ability to provide for herself.
The Man with the Microphone
The man with the microphone is an agent of fate. He represents the white establishment that erects barriers to Black peoples’ success. He does not control the numbers on the wheel, he only spins it and calls out the numbers as they appear. The outcomes are not predetermined. In the end, he decides not to give the protagonist the prize money, even though he has won it fairly, if unconventionally.
Even though the decision to withhold the jackpot goes against the rules, no one demands that they be enforced. The other people in the theater are glad because now they have a chance at winning the jackpot. Their siding with the white authority figure rather than standing up for the protagonist is an example of the racialized scarcity dynamic that existed under segregation. The fear that there was never enough to go around pitted individuals against one another, especially when the stakes were high.
The man with the microphone is also aligned with the police, whom he uses to enforce order when the protagonist’s behavior gets out of control. Though the protagonist was disrupting the event, the officer kicks him in the head after the protagonist releases the button, showing that the force used was excessive. The police uphold the man with the microphone’s decision not to give the protagonist the prize money. The man does not have to enforce his discriminatory policies because the police and white establishment do it for him.
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