Roger Mais Short Story Blackout | An Analytical Study
Roger Mais Short Story Blackout | An Analytical Study
Roger Mais Short Story Blackout | An Analytical Study
‘Blackout’ by Roger Mais is a short story that deals with the theme of conflict between two contradictory ideals of life– class or colour discrimination and the classless liberal ideal.
The story sets in a city on a West Indian island during World War II. At that time American society was segregated with separate schools, buses and restaurants for the blacks and the whites races of people. During such a time an unnamed American woman went to a West Indian island where one night she was on the way to a bus stand. In the meantime a young man approached her and asked for a light, to light his cigarette. This request caused some tension in her mind. Because she was a typical American woman with a consciousness of racism. She hesitated to give light to the black young man. Moreover, she had no matchbox with her. She was smoking but she had only lit one from the stub of the cigarette she had thrown away.
Eventually, she held out her cigarette to him between two fingers. The young black man, bending his head, accepted the proffered light. He inhaled a deep lungful soothing smoke and exhaled again with satisfaction. He thanked her politely and when he was moving off he saw that instead of returning her the cigarette to her lips, she flicked it away. This behaviour of the young woman changed his polite gratitude to ‘cold speculation’.
This reference to the cigarette shapes the whole story. The attitude of the young American woman towards the black young West Indian man reveals her inner character, motives and attitude towards people.Â
The young man’s cold speculation and his contemptuous look toward the young American brought some tension to the mind of the young woman. In a way, it unnerved her. Not that she was frightened. He seemed quite decent in his way and harmless, but he made her uncomfortable. Because his look was quite contemptuous. So she felt that if he said something rude she would have preferred it. It would have been no more than she would have expected of him.
Then he said to her that there were only men and women in the land. There was no class distinction. He remained standing there with the consciousness of male strength and pride that was justly his. There seemed something about him that was at once challenging and disturbing for the young woman standing at the same bus stand. His challenging attitude arose out of her sense of class equality which overcame the racist attitude of the young American woman and this gave him the power to shake the young woman’s feeling of class distinction.
Thus the reference to cigarettes functions the structure of the whole story through which the storyteller brings about his theme into action successfully.
The theme of the story is no doubt single but very poignant and significant through which the storyteller presented two contradictory worlds.
Structurally the story is a successful one as the author has very artfully maintained the three unities – the unity of action, the unity of purpose and the unity of time.
In the use of dialogue in the story the author is very sparing and exact as the dialogue that he has employed in the mouth of his characters have revealed the inner motives of the characters very successfully. 0 0 0
Roger Mais Short Story Blackout | An Analytical Study
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N. B. This article entitled ‘Roger Mais Short Story Blackout | An Analytical Study’ originally belongs to the book ‘World Short Story Criticism‘ by Menonim Menonimus. Roger Mais Short Story Blackout | An Analytical Study
Books of Literary Criticism by M. Menonimus:
- World Short Story Criticism
- World Poetry Criticism
- World Drama Criticism
- World Novel Criticism
- World Essay Criticism
- Indian English Poetry Criticism
- Indian English Poets and Poetry Chief Features
- Emily Dickinson’s Poetry-A Thematic Study
- Walt Whitman’s Poetry-A Thematic Study
- Critical Essays on English Poetry
- Tawfiq al-Hakim’s Novel: Return of the Spirit-An Analytical Study
- Tawfiq al-Hakim’s Novel: ‘Yawmiyyat Naib Fil Arayaf’-An Analytical Study
- Analytical Studies of Some Arabic Short Stories
- A Brief History of Arabic Literature: Pre-Islamic Period …
Books on Linguistics by M. Menonimus:
- A Brief History of the English Language
- Essays on Linguistics
- My Imageries
- Felicitous Expression: Some Examples
- Learners’ English Dictionary
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