Blog2 Topic1

Blog2 Topic1

In late 1800s to early 1900s period, with the fall of imperialism,  the European nobles and superiors were losing their power. Such process is reflected among various literatures, especially on the Southern whites in “A Rose for Emily”and on the Englishmen in “Shooting an Elephant”. As the superior class played an important role in both novels, one can observe the situation of the Southern whites in North America and the Englishmen in Burma.

Since they are superior than most of the other people in the story, the main characters of both novels have unique proudness. Such identity made them sensitive to others’ opinions and influenced their behaviors. In “A Rose for Emily”, Emily seemed to be the only noble in the town. She and her family “held themselves a little too high for what they really were” such that Emily stayed in her house with her black servant for most of her life. She didn’t have any friends, nor seems to confide anyone. The novel depicted several conversations between Emily and other people in the town. “Her voice is dry and cold” while facing the deputation who want her to pay tax. She said “see Colonel Sartoris” (who was dead) twice and then drove away the deputation. Even when she was talking to a druggist to buy poison, she interrupted the druggist three times and “looked back at him, erect, her face like a strained flag”. These two plots in the novel showed Emily’s poor attitude to other people. Her pride as Southern whites made her reclusive and contributed to her tragedy.

Written in first person, “Shooting an Elephant” presented the mental activity of the narrator clearer.  When the narrator, a police and also an Englishmen with guns in his hand,  was facing the crazy elephant with Burmans behind him, “for at that moment, with the crowd watching me, I was not afraid in the ordinary sense… A white man mustn’t be frightened in front of natives”. He was not thinking about whether his life was threatened by the elephant, but “if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on...”. It was his identity as a superior Englishmen that drove him to shoot the elephant in front of these inferiors.

Though the main characters in both novels have similar proudness, the endings were completely different, which is a result of the different situation of Southern whites in Emily’s town and the Englishman in Burman. Though people in the town were somehow respectful to Emily, without running business and staying at home, the Grierson family is a powerless “empty shell”. Emily had nothing but the limited property and the “noblesse oblige”. Moreover, as the town is being industrialized,  Emily fell behind the times because she rejected to change. “Garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood;only Miss Emily’s house was left.” As implied in the beginning of the novel, the stubbornness of  Southern whites contributed to her tragedy.

On the other hand, though “the British Empire is dying”, as one of the oppressors who could suppress Burmans by weapons, the narrator of “Shooting an Elephant” is much more powerful than Emily. For whatever reason, he successfully dealt with the problem of the elephant and maintained his image as a brave white Englishman.