In the following essay, Mazurek examines the key themes of class and race in Ellison's Flying Home and Other Stories and argues that these early short stories offer insight into his leftist political ideology as well as his growth as a writer.

In the following essay, Blake considers the role of African American folklore in Ellison's short stories.

In the following essay, Blake illustrates how Ellison's use of black folklore aids him in "bridg[ing the gap between the uniqueness and the universality of black experience."]

In the following essay, Eversley maintains that “King of the Bingo Game” reflects Ellison's increasing interest in psychology and his support of a psychiatric clinic in Harlem.

In the following essay, Pinckney surveys Ellison's life and career.

In the following essay, Schor underscores the importance of Ellison's early stories as “the arena for his discovery of the appropriate forms to express the African-American experience and for working out the meaning of the experience for himself.”

In the following essay, O'Meally traces Ellison's literary development through eight early short stories.

In the following essay, Foley contends that Ellison's early stories and journalism provide insights into his political and literary growth.

In the essay below, Real analyzes the structure and social context of "King of the Bingo Game " in terms of the protagonist's quest for self-identity.

In the following essay, Bigsby examines Ellison's paradoxical treatment of chaos and form.

In the following interview, Ellison discusses his life and his views on writing and literature, specifically addressing his own works, so-called "protest literature," and contemporary African-American writers and literature.

Below, Ostendorf illustrates Ellison 's understanding of the aesthetic, social, and historical functions of black folklore through a detailed analysis of "Flying Home. "

In the following essay, Ogunyemi assesses Ellison's “Flying Home” and Paule Marshall's “Barbados.”

[In the essay below, written on the occasion of Ellison's eightieth birthday, Remnick provides an overview of Ellison's career, discussing the writer's unfinished second novel, his critical reputation, his contributions to American society, and the value of Invisible Man.]

In the following essay, Skerrett traces the influence of Richard Wright's works on the style and themes of Ellison's earliest short stories.

In the essay below, Trimmer explores symbolic patterns of race and myth in "Flying Home, " discussing the narrative in terms of the black protagonist's identity within his racial community, the myths of Daedalus and the Phoenix, the Christian doctrine of the fortunate fall, and the story of the prodigal son.

In the essay below, Doyle examines several of Ellison 's short stories, demonstrating that his alienated protagonists usually reconnect with their racial heritage by embracing a folk person or some type of folk practice.

[Crouch is an American poet, essayist, playwright, educator, editor, and critic. In the following overview of Ellison's life, he relates Ellison's personality, critical reception, and literary aims.]

Ellison, after Poe, is the American writer most self-consciously committed to the ideas of the mind thinking, of the mind, that is, as the ultimate source of transcendence or salvation. But he is also the inheritor of a wellspring of emotional pain, the collective black experience in America, that has received its traditional artistic expression in the blues beat and lyric. Several critics … [as well as] Ellison himself have emphasized the influence of blues forms and themes on the structure of [Invi...

In the following review, Giddins offers a laudatory assessment of Flying Home and Other Stories.

[An American novelist, essayist, short story writer, and scriptwriter, Johnson is best known for his novel Middle Passage (1990), which earned him a National Book Award. In the essay below, he offers high praise for Ellison and his writings.]

In the following essay, Saunders suggests that the symbolism used by Ellison in "King of the Bingo Game "—particularly the symbolism of the bingo game, the anonymity of the protagonist, and the bingo wheel—reflects the racial oppression of blacks in American society.

In the following essay, Urquhart discusses the significance of naming in “King of the Bingo Game,” which “suggests that the relationship between white and black remains a relationship between colonizer and colonized.”

"The Birthmark" … displays, I think, enough of Wright's influence—as well as Hemingway's—to justify some concern on Wright's part that Ellison might be able to steal his thunder, in time. In the story, a black man and his sister have been brought to the scene of an alleged auto accident to identify the body of their brother; they discover, when they attempt to find an identifying birthmark below the navel, that he has been lynched and castrated. Outrag...

In the following essay, Herman discusses aspects of “King of the Bingo Game” that undercut its apparent literary naturalism.

In the following essay, Callahan describes his discovery of Ellison's forgotten short story “A Party Down at the Square” and briefly explicates thematic and stylistic aspects of the tale.

In the following review, Miller provides a positive assessment of Flying Home and Other Stories.

In the following review, Nicholson examines The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison and two works by Albert Murray, providing a laudatory assessment of all three works and characterizing the two authors as "giants" in terms of their talent and achievements as writers.

[In the following, Folkart offers praise for Invisible Man and provides an overview of Ellison's life.]

[Lyons is an American journalist. In the excerpt below, he provides an overview of Ellison's life.]

Ralph (Waldo) Ellison stands at the opposite end of the writer's world from Richard Wright. Although he is as aware of the issues of the race war as anyone else, he is no more a consciously active participant than, say, Gwendolyn Brooks or William Faulkner. "I wasn't, and am not, primarily concerned with injustice, but with art." He achieves his extraordinary power through artistry and control, through objectivity, irony, distance: he works with symbol rather than with act. He is...

In the following essay, Herman explains how Ellison both follows and deviates from the conventions of literary naturalism in "King of the Bingo Game."

In the following essay, Blythe and Sweet argue that Ellison's use of juxtaposition in “King of the Bingo Game” “makes more poignant the gap between white and black America in the 1930s.”

In the following review, Holmstrom provides a favorable assessment of Flying Home and Other Stories.