Blog Post #2 Topic #1

                  Racism is present in both “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell. Both authors are able to highlight the power dynamic between the colonizing Whites and the other. The authors then tied in this idea with the time period that the story is written in to reflect and comment on historical facts. The two stories are quite similar in that they both portray a power dynamic; however, they contrast in the way that that power is handled by the other.

                  “A Rose for Emily” is set roughly in the 1930’s and 1940’s at a time when the Civil War is long over; there are notions that racism still persists in the south. When the Whites are no longer able to legally bind African Americans to slavery, “Colonel Sartoris... fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron...” in order to uphold the image that African Americans are still lower than the Whites. The Whites continued to oppress African Americans despite the fact that the two groups should be equal. This can be seen through all of the men and townspeople that Miss Emily were willing to talk to. They are all people in position of power such as the “city authorities” and “Colonel Sartoris” and they all happen to be White because only Whites are allowed to hold positions of power. In addition, there is only one Black character in the story and he happens to be a worker for Miss Emily. It gives a feeling that he is loosely her slave without the official title and binding contract. Because Miss Emily is “a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town...” it meant that her actions most likely reflected the part of the south she lived in. Meaning that if she still has a Black servant, the other Whites in power probably has them too. Yet the author did not mention these other Black people that live in this town despite the fact that the reader can safely assume that there has to be more than one Black person in the south, during that period, in any given town.

                  “Shooting an Elephant” was written in 1936 during the time that the British are colonizing Burma. This power dynamic is between the Whites and the indigenous people. However, the difference between this story and “A Rose for Emily” is the way in which the indigenous people behave. The narrator tries to assert his power over the indigenous people, however in trying to do so he allows the other to control him instead. The narrator knows that he shouldn’t shoot the elephant because it “looked no more dangerous than a cow” and that its “attack… is already passing off...”. However, in the end the narrator decides that he “should… shoot the elephant after all” because he is “an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces…”. In this story there is more of a struggle for power between the Whites and the indigenous groups in comparison to “A Rose for Emily”.

                  Both stories dealt with power dynamic in different settings, but the way it is handled differs in some aspects. In “A Rose for Emily” the Blacks allow the Whites to continue to mistreat them by being unwillingly subservient to them and their laws because they lack the realization of who truly hold the power. In “Shooting an Elephant” the indigenous people were aware and against of the colonization that was happening to them and in this way they were able to fight back against the White men. It can be argued that the indigenous people were a step ahead of the Blacks and if the Blacks are willing to revolt they could have a similar outcome. If the Blacks were to come to this realization they could shatter whatever power the Whites think they hold and be like the indigenous people.