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.
Literary Devices
Psychological Realism
Psychological realism is a literary genre that was popular in the late 19th century. The genre is heavily character driven and follows a protagonist’s inner world closely. The protagonist often faces a grave internal dilemma, and the actions in the story focus on testing the character’s resolve and mental state.
The genre was popular at the turn of the 20th century because the field of psychology was coming to prominence. In the literary world, many authors reacted against the romantic and realist genres of the early 19th century, which they saw as ignoring the characters’ inner worlds. The assumption that life is subjective and determined by one’s individual experience—rather than external events—is the basis of psychological realism.
Protagonists are often solitary and more focused on their interior world than the outside world. They often find interacting with the people around them taxing and disturbing to their mental state. The genre’s recurring theme is the struggle for authenticity in a world that demands conformity and compromise.
The classic example of a psychological realist author and master of the genre is Fyodor Dostoyevsky. His novel Crime and Punishment features a protagonist, Raskolnikov, who struggles with the decision to take a life. Once he does so, he must face the moral and legal ramifications of his action. Dostoevsky was an influence on Ellison, and though the protagonist of “King of the Bingo Game” does not face the same moral dilemma as Raskolnikov, he too must find a way to exist in a world that is set up to destroy him. Like Raskolnikov, the protagonist is driven to a hallucinatory breakdown as he struggles to make sense of a reality that rewards those in authority, even when their actions are immoral, and punishes and exploits ordinary people.
Psychological realism critiques society by showing how unfair or immoral circumstances drive otherwise well-meaning or benign characters to extremity. Psychological realism is often connected to existentialism because the genre questions the meaning of existence on a fundamental level.
Internal Monologue
Because psychological realism focuses on the protagonist’s inner world, the genre relies on internal monologue to convey a character’s thoughts and feelings. Internal monologue can be written in the first or third person, and sometimes, as in “King of the Bingo Game,” the narration switches between the two.
Inner monologue is tied to the protagonist’s sense of self. It can reveal a character’s fears and insecurities and whether their mental state is stable or unraveling. Inner monologue can increase narrative tension, especially if the way a character interacts with those around them is in stark contradiction to the way they talk to themselves.
Inner monologue also increases narrative tension because it gives the reader insight into the protagonist’s plans, motives, and desires that may be hidden from the rest of the characters in the story. In “King of the Bingo Game,” the reader gains insight into the protagonist’s profound desperation and that knowledge affects how we interpret his behavior. Without it, his actions would seem strange and irrational, and the reader would be like the people in the audience who do not understand why he will not stop spinning the wheel.
Inner monologue can give a voice to characters who lack power in the outside world. Characters who make extensive use of inner monologue must often restrain themselves from speaking openly because doing so would have negative consequences, or they would be ignored. They may struggle to express themselves, like the protagonist, and their words may not be understood. This is especially true when a character is experiencing thoughts and feelings that cannot easily be put into words. Inner monologue can provide insight into a character’s values and relationships; for example, through the protagonist’s inner monologue, the reader knows that helping Laura is one of his primary motivations, even though Laura does not appear in the story.
Dialect
“Dialect” refers to the speech of a group or individual that differs from what is considered standard American speech. Dialects tend to be specific to regions or communities in which a language other than English is prevalent.
“Standard” American English is the language of the white middle and upper classes who have traditionally controlled the country’s institutions and means of advancement. The use of Standard American English is enforced in classrooms and professional environments, which has historically disadvantaged minority populations with different dialects or manners of speech. Dialects that differ from the imposed norm have been considered substandard, indicating a lack of education or intelligence. Every population in the United States speaks a dialect particular to their region, but dialects spoken by minorities have been historically deemed unacceptable in mainstream communication.
In linguistics and other fields, the term “dialect” is considered problematic because it reinforces the distinction between what is considered language and what is considered a subset of that language. Dialect is recognized as a literary term for indicating a character’s particular manner of speaking through spelling, vocabulary, and grammar that differ from Standard American English.
Ellison uses dialect as a way to affirm Black identity and impart authenticity to his characters. Ellison’s work portrays the reality of Black experience in the 1940s. As such, depending on the characters’ backgrounds, he writes their speech as they would have spoken it at the time. Note that there is a difference between the speech of the protagonist and that of the narrator. This distinguishes the narrator’s point of view from the protagonist’s, even though the narrator offers insight into the protagonist’s state of mind.
The protagonist thinks the way he speaks: “Well, I ain’t crazy. I’m just broke, ’cause I got no birth certificate to get a job, and Laura ’bout to die ’cause we got no money for a doctor” (469). Ellison and other writers of the Harlem Renaissance understood that carrying Black spoken speech into a literary context was an act of defiance and a political statement because like all other institutions, American literature had always been the domain of white English.
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By Ralph Ellison
