Blog post 2 topic 1

Race acts as the underlying driving force for both “A Rose for Emily,” by William Faulkner, and “Shooting an Elephant,” by George Orwell. In the former, racial privilege plays a vital role in the lives of Southern whites, which sets the backdrop for the storyline of Faulkner’s literary piece. The latter revolves around inner conflicts that spring from racial and colonial tensions. Both texts reflect the attitudes of their time, providing a clear historical layout of their respective settings. The authors of both draw on the emotional aspect of historical events that transpired, subsequently influencing their writings.

Southern whites played a pivotal role in navigating the storyline in “A Rose for Emily,” especially considering its historical context. The story is set in the south during the post civil war era, where race tensions were heightened to its peak. Prejudices are evident all throughout the story and are especially prevalent among the Southern white elitists. Miss Emily Grierson is regarded to with the highest respects, referred to as “a tradition, a duty, and a care,” despite the fact that she treats all the townspeople with complete hostility. She stands very high atop the social ladder, further upholding the privilege already bestowed onto her because she was white. This privilege pardons her from numerous liabilities, to the extent that “Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale” in order to justify her exemption from taxes. Contrastingly, African Americans are placed on the opposite spectrum of the social hierarchy and are treated with absolutely no respect. Colonel Sartoris decides that “no Negro woman should appear on the street without an apron.” This shows that Southern white privilege not only improved the lives of those to which it pertained, but it also undermined social equality for Southern blacks.

“Shooting an Elephant” is similar to Faulkner’s story in that it utilizes race as the driving force in the story, except Orwell’s story is more centered around race tensions rooted in colonialism. The story takes place in Moulmein in the 1930’s, a time when British rule still existed in Burma. The narrator in the story faces inner conflicts that arise because of the influence of Englishmen--he was “all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British,” yet he could not find it in himself to quit his job as police officer for the British. He sees the elephant as his chance to redeem himself with the Burmese people, since “a white man mustn't be afraid in front of ‘natives’.” A great deal of pressure is placed onto his shoulders--he “had no intention of shooting the elephant” but feels compelled to do so in order to please the Burmese people. The racial tensions created by the Englishmen forces the narrator to make a difficult moral choice; he can either shoot the elephant and “impress the ‘natives’” or follow his own moral standards and spare the elephant. Ultimately, the pressures get to him and he shoots the elephant. The story shows the extent to which colonialism dictated the lives of colonizers and colonized people alike.