A power Struggle
...nimal who enslaves. He has always been a slave in one form or another, and has always held other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another.” This claim confirms the idea that an individual can not be stronger than the society in which he or she lives because, though they may be higher than others, whether by means of slavery or economic status, there will always be someone higher than them. Twain goes on to argue that in today’s society the idea of slavery is that of working in the industrial world for wages. He maintains that “he is always some man’s slave for wages, and does that man’s work; and this slave has other slaves under him for minor wages, and they do his work”. This brilliant concept can be seen in our capitalistic system in terms of the music business. An individual can have an amazing talent and have a backbone of agents, record labels, and fans to work for him in his trip to fame and popularity; he can reach such a high status that he may be considered by some to be above all others (such is the case with Britney Spears). Yet, as much as it seems that this individual is mighty powerful, his backbone of people working for him can just as easily break the power as they made it. Both the individual and the people working to make him powerful are puppets in our society; the individual is a puppet of large record labels and the record labels are puppets of the individual and the fan base they work to please. Another instance where it seems logical that an individual can, indeed, rise above society, but in actuality can not is seen in George Orwell’s essay, “Shooting an Elephant”. In this essay, Orwell tells a story of the time he was imperialist officer in a small colonial town of the British Empire and was sent to take care of a problem with an escaped elephant. He mentions throughout the essay that the natives did not like him, and how he did not particularly like the empire he was working for either. Once he is in front of the elephant, and a huge crowd has gathered around him excitedly, he realizes that he must shoot the elephant, though that was not what he intended to do, so that the crowd would not laugh at him. Orwell realizes that “standing in front of the unarmed native crowd… I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind” and that “when the white man turns tyrant, it is his own freedom that he destroys.” This story demonstrates precisely why the individual can not rise above society in that the main character, the officer, had ...