The Postbellum Southern Disillusionment In Wash Analysis

The Postbellum Southern Disillusionment in â€Å"Wash† According to German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, exercising and expanding one’s personal power is â€Å"all that one wants† (Nietzsche 36). He argues that â€Å"we hurt those to whom we need to make our power perceptible, [and] we benefit and show benevolence toward those who already depend on us in some way† (36). Per this logic, individuals who exhibit generosity feel content with their current influence on the world while those who act injuriously yearn for more control over their peers. It is not surprising, then, that the Poor White sociocultural caste of the Antebellum and particularly the Postbellum South exhibited extreme malice towards blacks, in attempts to elevate themselves due to†¦show more content†¦Critic Franà §oise Buisson observes that â€Å"Wash’s idealized vision of his master present[s] the reader with the baroque drama of Southern illusion† (Buisson 2), and Wash’s outlook embodies the general Southern attitude perpetuating inequality. He believes wholly in his master, and remarks â€Å"‘Well Kernel †¦ they kilt us but they ain’t whupped us yit, air they?’† (Faulkner 132). Wash alters his own self-perception in a desperate attempt of self-elevation, convincing himself that the â€Å"world in which he sensed always about him mocking echoes of black laughter was but a dream and an illusion, and that the actual world was this one across which his own lonely apotheosis seemed to gallop on the black thoroughbred† (132). Wash’s Platonic conception of himself is merely a plebian emulation of the man he reveres most: Thomas Sutpen. He imagines himself in a position of power atop Sutpen’s black stallion, with all of the marks of representative power. When subjected to the verbal degradation that he experiences at the tongues of the slaves â€Å"calling him white trash† (Faul kner 130), Wash attempts to escape the reality of his dismal situation by fabricating a fictitious existence with limited verisimilitude. Wash’s puerile dismissal of his forlorn situation reflects many white Southerners’ general denial of the upshot of the Civil War—while in fact they are defeated, they refuse to accept this adverse reality. In addition to using examples of Wash’s