Why do you think the narrator dreams about his grandfather after the fight? What do you think his dream means?

indeedboy,

“Battle Royal,” 1947, was Ellison's first chapter of Invisible Man, which is introduced by the first-person narrator’s explanation of how as a black, he is considered so unimportant by white society that he is virtually non-existent (invisible).

A major strand of the speaker’s consciousness is his grandfather’s advice to consider kindness and submission as a subversive activity (paragraph 3). We may construe the narrator’s dream (paragraph 106) as a description of his circumstances in the face of racial discrimination. In the dream, empty envelope after empty envelope indicates the hollowness of white promises for black improvement, and the final words, “Keep This Nigger-Boy Running,” vitiate the sincerity of whites (paragraph 107.)

He has been asked to give the same speech before a meeting of town dignitaries, and goes to the meeting expecting to be received warmly and sympathetically. Instead of such friendliness, he is shown the very worst and most discriminatory vindictiveness of the members of the town’s white power structure.