Blog 2, Topic 1.

The southern whites in “A Rose for Emily” and Englishmen in “Shooting an Elephant” both play the dominant roles. Although they are in different background, I see similar point between the two classical representations..

In the story of “A Rose For Emily”, Emily’s father has the privilege in South . Her father forbids black women to walk on street without aprons. He tries to use his power to remind Black women that they are always lower class servants. Apparently, people in town respect Emily’s family and abide with Emily’s all kinds of weird behaviors, even though Emily's family invents ridiculous claims that the town owed money to them. Generally, Emily benefits from her family’s social status and even the mayor has to consider carefully so that he would not hurt her feelings. However, she is actually confined because she always has to act nobly and love people who are in same social level with hers. After her father’s death, she falls in love with Homer who is a charming Northerner. Her neighbors gossip about her all the time because at that time when the Civil war is over, Southern Whites are still arrogant towards Northern Whites. Southern Whites commonly view Northern Whites as vulgar people.  They call her “Poor Emily” because they think she forgets how noble the social class she is in. In the end, tragically, Emily kills her lover Homer so that no one would know she loves a Northern white. We can see that the influence of the division among Southern White and Northern Whiter and Black people is bi-directional. 

In the story of “Shooting an elephant”, we can also see the bi-directional influence between the dominant group and lower-power group. The British policeman who represents the dominant power is not respected in Lower Burma which was colonized by England. When the elephant breaks into the town, the Bermans run to the policeman and It's the first time the policeman is seen important. At first, he doesn’t want to kill the elephant. However, as he describes in the story, “The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly(3)”, he is forced to shoot the elephant in the end. He feels that the dominant power of England becomes “a sort of hollow, posing dummy(3)”. The colonization of English men in Burma not only influences the life of the Burmans but also themselves. The English men have to act like successful leaders no matter they want to or not. The policeman must feels such pressure on himself but he can’t refuse it. He is in the similar situation with Emily in the story of "A Rose for Emily". They are both confined by the standard of being part of the dominant group. They are forced to express the same opinion as the society expected.