Paper 1
英语1401 姓名:雷宸静 学号:08141003
Character Analysis in Sherwood Anderson’s I am a fool
角色分析—舍伍德安德森短篇小说《我是一个傻瓜》
I. The summary of I am a fool
I am a fool is a short story by American writer Sherwood Anderson. It was firstpublished in the February 1922. This short story is writtenwith the first and second person. The narrator is a nineteen-year-old boy whose life revolves around his job as a swipe at a local racetrack. But it is a worthless job without future. His best friend and fellow worker is a black man named Burt. One day, he work into a bar, orders a drink and expensive cigars, and spurns a well-dress man with a Windsor tie and a cane who is standing near his and whom he accuses of “putting on air”. Then, at the grandstand, the narrator meets this man and his sister, Lucy. They fall in love with each other, but because of his self-abasement, he doesn’t want to show her up for a boob. So he tell a series of lies about himself and his family background. Until the separate, the narrator still not tell the truth. He is so regret about this foolish behavior that he did.
II. The characteristic of Burt.
2.1Burt is an ambitious black man.
Due to the social environment of that era he cannot come to the fore. Burt was always stuck on being a driver but didn’t have much chance to get to the top, being a rigger, and he and the other nigger gulped that whole bottle of wine and Burt got a little lit up. (6) Burt think that he is an expert of drive a horse, but because of his identity he will never have a chance to show his excellent capacities. It reveal the racial discrimination of the society in that period of time.
2.2Burt is mixture of moderationand strength, he is earnest and assiduous person.
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The narrator “liked Burt fine”, and they “got along splendid together” (1). The swipe says that Burt has “soft, kind eyes”, and yet “when it came to a fight he could hit like Jack Johnson” (1). Burt did not show off. Though he possessed such great strength and skill, he was generally kind and gentle, and did not reveal his other side unless needed. Burt was modest and made the swipe feel at ease.
III The characteristic of the narrator.
3.1 The narrator is immature and uneducated.
3.1.1 The narrator is emotional and irrational
Some people never do any wrong for him, yet he jealously hates them. He wants to hurt the boy on purpose who was “saving money to work his way through college” because that boy was taking jobs away from him (1). When he meets the man with the Windsor tie, he is repelled by his distinguished outfits and he showed off by buying cigars and wines. “There aren’t Walter Mathers, like I said to her and them, and there hasn’t been one, but if there was, I bet I’d go to Marietta, Ohio, and shoot him tomorrow.” (9) He wishes to “shoot” him. He resents those who have what he doesn’t have. So from these examples it can illustrate that he is not mature enough to treat this social distinction with a placid. 3.1.2 The narrator is uneducated.
At the very beginning of this story “It was a hard jolt for me, one of the most bitterest I ever had to face.” When he uses phrases such as “most bitterest”, his improper grammar and many slang uses, such as “yaps” illustrate that he is an uneducated man. “I kept thinking of wagons running over him and bricks falling on his head as he walked along the street.” (1) The narrator resents the boy who gets the job from him by use the pretest that he want to save money to go to university. The narrator wants nothing to do with education. He believes that the “fellows” who “go to high schools and college…don’t know nothing at all” (2). The narrator got his education at the stables, the races, and the saloons; he does not care to be properly educated. He doesn’t have an awareness about the important of education.
3.2The narrator has inferior complex.
“In the bar there was a fellow with a cane and a Windsor tie on, that it made me sick to look at him.”(4) It also shows the narrator’s inferior complex. He didn’t born in a rich family, doesn’t have a superior social standard.The narrator is from a poor white people family and took a job as a swipe, it’s the only job he could get. “They both
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thought it something disgraceful that one of our family should take a place as a swipe with race horse.” His mother and sister thought that this job was “disgraceful” (1). At first, he doesn’t think so, but when he meets Miss Wessen he is fall in love with her and he doesn’t want her know his real identity, but want to make a good impression. “One thing’s about as good as another, if you take it just right. I’ve often said that.”(4) It shows one of the moral standards of the narrator, but when he sees Miss Wessen’s “nice clothes” and “nice eyes”, he wants to impress her with a different identity. He does not want to “show her up for a boob” (7), so he tell a series of lies. The narrator tells lie because of the sense of self-abasement. When the narrator sees other person have something that he doesn’t have, the sense of inferiority will well up in his heart, and he can’t help to perfect himself by brags.
The friendship between the narrator and Burt is an example of his na?ve about his social status. Burt is a n black man, he is a person who is live in the bottom rung of the society. The narrator, as the friend of Burt, they do the same job, and have the same social status. He pretends as a rich man who is totally different from him. He is oblivious of his low social rank. He said that he is a fool because he lies to others, but I think is not because of that, but because he deceives himself about his family background, his life, his experience, his true feelings and his heart. And what he do give rise to an irrevocable consequence.
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