A Post-Colonial Analysis of Mr. Know-All and Man-to-Man
Li Bingjie
Professor Zhang Zaixin
Subject: Term paper for Reading the Short Story in English
28 June 2011
A Post-colonial Analysis of the Short Story
Mr. Know-All and the Film Man-to-Man
Race has been a fundamental concept in the world literature of all times. Racism, under which race-related issues are mostly discussed, involves the belief in racial differences, which acts as a justification for non-equal treatment, or discrimination, of members of that race. The term can have varying and contested definitions in works of different forms, but it is commonly used negatively and is usually associated with race-based prejudice, violence, dislike, discrimination, or oppression. Sociologist David Wellman defines racism as a “culturally sanctioned belief” (Wellman); sociologists Noël A. Cazenave and Darlene Alvarez Maddern define racism as “...a highly organized system of race-based group privilege that operates at every level of society and is held together by a sophisticated ideology of color/race supremacy.” Such ideology of supremacy can be typically reflected in post-colonial theory and literature, whose overlapping themes include the initial encounter with the colonizer, the disruption of indigenous culture, the concept of “othering”, colonial oppression, white supremacy, and so on.
This paper looks at Somerset Maugham’s short story Mr. Know-All and the 2005 French film Man-to-Man through a post-colonial lens. Both works are good representations of post-colonial themes and can be better interpreted by understanding the mentality behind the colonist ideology. This ideology divides people of the onetime commonwealth countries and their descendents into colonizers—the “self” and the colonized—the “other”, and develops such mentality into white supremacy, discriminating against all other ethnicities.
Theological Framework
To comprehend the story and the film on a deeper level, one needs to firstly understand the colonialist ideology (also referred to as
Professor Zhang Zaixin
Subject: Term paper for Reading the Short Story in English
28 June 2011
A Post-colonial Analysis of the Short Story
Mr. Know-All and the Film Man-to-Man
Race has been a fundamental concept in the world literature of all times. Racism, under which race-related issues are mostly discussed, involves the belief in racial differences, which acts as a justification for non-equal treatment, or discrimination, of members of that race. The term can have varying and contested definitions in works of different forms, but it is commonly used negatively and is usually associated with race-based prejudice, violence, dislike, discrimination, or oppression. Sociologist David Wellman defines racism as a “culturally sanctioned belief” (Wellman); sociologists Noël A. Cazenave and Darlene Alvarez Maddern define racism as “...a highly organized system of race-based group privilege that operates at every level of society and is held together by a sophisticated ideology of color/race supremacy.” Such ideology of supremacy can be typically reflected in post-colonial theory and literature, whose overlapping themes include the initial encounter with the colonizer, the disruption of indigenous culture, the concept of “othering”, colonial oppression, white supremacy, and so on.
This paper looks at Somerset Maugham’s short story Mr. Know-All and the 2005 French film Man-to-Man through a post-colonial lens. Both works are good representations of post-colonial themes and can be better interpreted by understanding the mentality behind the colonist ideology. This ideology divides people of the onetime commonwealth countries and their descendents into colonizers—the “self” and the colonized—the “other”, and develops such mentality into white supremacy, discriminating against all other ethnicities.
Theological Framework
To comprehend the story and the film on a deeper level, one needs to firstly understand the colonialist ideology (also referred to as
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