Blog 2: Topic #1

The lust for power drives many forces to become demeaning and vulgar. In Faulkner’s
A Rose for Emily” and Orwell’s” Shooting and Elephant” we are able to witness the influence of power and hierarchy in the historical significant situations the characters are placed in.

            Both authors undermine colored individuals to establish white power. At the time of the stories’ plots in the early 1900’s segregation and imperialism were at climactic points in their respective areas. Orwell points out the indefinite and unimportant identity of Emily’s servant, an African American man. He has no direct role in the plot as he is his “without information.” His sole identity as a “doddering negro” was to go to the market for Emily, a white, articulates the dearth of respect he has as a human being, common for a segregated, post-civil war southern society. Faulkner, likewise, undermines the Burma coolie that gets killed by the elephant as insignificant as he leaves his body as if it was an object that was mangled. The white officer shows no respect for the dead man and compares him to a “skinless rabbit”. This imperialistic attitude in Faulkner paints way for the officer to depreciate the “dark Dravidian” of Burma and establish white hierarchy.

Orwell displays an unveiled need of supremacy from an English imperialist over the Burma Indians, while Faulkner focuses on the indirect authority of the townspeople as white southerners over the colored servant. Orwell is in a fixed situation where he kills an elephant in the name of up keeping the hierarchy of his position as a white officer. He is fearful the crowd will “laugh” at him undermining his authority. If he failed to take any action it would emphasize the “white man’s futility in the east.” Therefore in order to “avoid looking like a fool” the narrator feels obligated to the “yellow faces” and to do as the pleased. The narrators actions are driven as a result of maintaining this hierarchical position as an imperialist over the darker colored natives. He would not have committed such a drastic “murder” if it had not been a necessary part of the “mask [he]… grows to fit.” In contrast, Orwell shows the power dynamic being more concealed. This post-civil war era represents a concealing discrimination against the African Americans. After being freed they are not given direct belittling treatment yet the servant still is under the white as he works for Emily and is responsible to run her errands by going to the “marke.” There is no talk of outright disrespect of the “negro” but again he is seen without title and any sense of authority or priority as after Emily’s death he “disappears.” Orwell showcases this hidden post-civil war segregation of power  through the representation of the black man but Faulkner verbalizes this authority of the colonial white man.

Orwell and Faulkner point out the atmosphere undermining colored individuals in the event of segregation and imperialism that is occurring in the south and in Burma respectively. Yet Faulkner focuses more on a racial imperialistic attitude throughout to establish white power whereas Orwell primarily focuses on concealing this division between the two colors of individuals.

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