Over the weekend, you will refine your model. You must identify the various stages, what order they go in, what characteristics define them, and what events move the subject from one stage to another. Be sure to use evidence--passages from the texts which demonstrate the subjects are displaying the characteristics of each stage and what forces drive them from one stage to another.
Here is my preliminary model for your consideration:
An innocence stage:
Both men are perplexed by their situation, at being considered objects of hatred. They are experiencing treatment from others which they did not anticipate and have little or no experience dealing with. Orwell talks about his conflicting emotions (torn between feelings of guilt and vengeance). Baldwin talks about his father's bitterness toward whites (the white woman who "took an interest" in James) and how the young Baldwin never thought he would share that bitterness.
The innocence stage is characterized by confusion about how others' see us, why they look upon us unfavorably. Orwell discusses how he was young and ill educated about the mechanisms of maintaining an Empire. Baldwin discusses how his father was trapped in a paranoia and bitterness he (the young Baldwin) did not yet comprehend.
An anger stage:
Both men feel anger toward their oppressors. Orwell would like to stick a bayonet in the guts of a Buddhist priest. Baldwin is almost driven to commit murder during a fit of blind rage.
The anger stage is characterized by a resentment for unjust treatment, a desire to defend oneself against attack. Orwell is angry that he must do anything necessary to avoid being an object of laughter (including killing a defenseless animal). Baldwin is angry that he must become what others think he is in order to justify their false notion of him.
A resignation or surrender stage:
Both men eventually give in to others' expectations/image of them. Orwell repeatedly says that he doesn't want to shoot the elephant but that he has to. He says he has become a "puppet" of the crowd, and must do what is expected of him. Baldwin decides that he will give the white waitress something to make her fear of him justified. Since he cannot beat the crowd, he will join it by making himself into the animal some white people wrongly think he is.
A healing stage:
Both men regret the actions taken in the surrender stage. Orwell and Baldwin realize that they have lost themselves. Orwell murders an animal against his will, all to "avoid looking like a fool." Baldwin almost kills a human being because he has lost sight of what truly matters: "It was necessary to hold on to the things that mattered. The dead man mattered, the new life mattered; blackness and whiteness did not matter; to believe that they did was to acquiesce in one's own destruction."
The healing stage is characterized by realization of the need for change. Baldwin knows that he must protect his heart from hatred and despair, that he must fight injustice without being consumed by it. Orwell realizes he must get out of Burma, get out of being a "puppet" for an imperialist government which forces him to perform acts agalnst his conscience ("to wear a mask and have [his] face grow to fit it").
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updated 9/99