“King of the Bingo Game” by Ralph Ellison is the story of an unnamed black man, in the 1930s, who hopes to win the bingo game which is taking place at the local cinema, to win enough money to pay for a visit to the doctor for his seriously ill wife. The central idea of ​​this story is about race and a person's inability to be master of their own destiny when living in an unjust and prejudicial system. The main character is completely alienated from the world around him. He is a black man living in a white world, a man who was born in the South but now lives in the North, and his only companion is his dying wife, Laura, whom he desperately wants to save. He cannot work because he does not have a birth certificate or an official identity. Without work he is unable to make his mark on the world, and if his wife dies, he would not only lose his lover but also all evidence of her existence. As the story progresses, he loses awareness of his own identity: "somehow he had forgotten his own name." The author highlights the main character's mistreatment in life by white society during a vivid memory of an event from his childhood when he was chased by a train full of "white people laughing as he ran screaming", a hallucination that was triggered by his exploration of the “old scars” on his body. This connection between alienation and oppression highlights Ellison's central idea. The conflict in this story can be seen when the main character fights with the two men who came on stage to take away the bingo wheel controller from him. This conflict is not only symbolic of his life, but also of the struggle of African Americans, during the 1930s and 1940s, to gain control of their lives when... middle of paper... they looked like the character principal is mocked, the title of “King” is taken away from him and he is made fun of. Works Cited Barnhisel, Greg. "An Overview of 'King of the Bingo Game'." Short stories for students. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Literature Resource Center. Network. August 2, 2011.Doyle, Mary Ellen. “Need of Folk: The Alienated Protagonists of Ralph Ellison’s Short Fiction.” CLA Journal 19.2 (December 1975): 165-172. Rpt. in Criticism of short stories. Ed. Carol T. Gaffke. vol. 26. Detroit: Gale Research, 1997. Literature Resource Center. Network. July 31, 2011.Saunders, Pearl I. "Symbolism in Ralph Ellison's 'King of the Bingo Game'." CLA Journal 20 (September 1976): 35-39. Rpt. in Criticism of short stories. Ed. Carol T. Gaffke. vol. 26. Detroit:Gale Research, 1997. Literature Resource Center. Network. August 1st. 2011.