Blog 3

Reading Montaige's "That men should not judge" and Orwell's "Shooting an elephant" I saw some clear similarities between those two pieces and some other pieces we've read earlier in class. I thought "Shooting an elephant" was similar to Jamaica Kincaid's "biography of a dress", although different from all other pieces. I also thought "That men should not judge" was most similar to Lott's "Toward a definition of creative nonfiction,", although different from all other pieces we've read in class.

What I found similar between "Shooting an elephant" and "biography of a dress" for one was the fact that it was a story abot themselves, some of the pieces earlier like Lott's and Montaige was not like that. Both stories was presented as one thing but in reality was a about something more important. For Jamaica Kincaid's story it was presented as a story about her second birth day and the days leading up to it, but in the backrond was the more important story of the relationship with her mother and how she was abused and hurt that her mother was ashamed of her. Like wise Orwell's piece wasn't just about him killing a crazy elephant but the backround of colonialism and treament of native people by a huge empire. Although I thought bother pieces were very similar I did notice one big difference between the two. I noticed Jamaica Kincaid's story she would alternate between the thoughts and perspectives of her as a 2 year old old and her as a older wiser women looking back and offering a different perspective on the same events. While Orwell's story only had one perspective, his at that exact moment he was a military officer in Bruma. So with Orwell's story you don't get the pespspective and changed view points like in Jamaica Kincaids story.

The other piece I thought were similar was Montaiges piece, and Lott's piece. It should come as no suprise since Lott specifically mentions Montaige being the pioneer of creative non-fiction in his own piece. I think what was so similar is that neither piece was written about themselves like the other pieces we've read. Instead both were about answering the question "what is creative non-fiction". Both talked about being truthful, looking back at a persons entire life before making a judgement, speaking about life expierences with outing preaching or grand standing. Neither writers piece was a creative non-fiction piece, but instead a piece about creative non-fiction and how a writer writes it.