Olaf and Emily A Comparison
... In comparing two diverse characters, Emily Grierson in Faulkner’s A Rose For Emily and Olaf Jensen in Wright’s Big Black Good Man, it is easily seen that fear drives people to respond in very unique ways. The first character that is looked upon with much anticipation of the next move is Emily Grierson, the main character in A Rose For Emily. ... Emily has a fear of change, which is easily symbolized throughout the story through her house. ... So as Emily aged, the house aged with her style- outdated but classic. The society in which she lived viewed her resistance to change as odd and uncommon to that time, so naturally Emily became the town’s amusement, if you will. ... The next character is Olaf, a man who has lived his life with no restrictions but still wonders about what might have been had he done things this way or had done things that way. Olaf works in a waterfront hotel in Copenhagen and is very well liked amongst the sailors that visit that hotel, arranging for whiskey, women, and bed accommodations. When the “huge black thing” enters his hotel, Olaf has an enormous sense of fear. And although Olaf is not the “outsider” in his community, the way he perceived things to happen with Jim, the black man, places him as an outsider of thought. He expected things to go a certain way- “Olaf sees what he believes rather than what actually exists.”(Felgar 100)- and it is because of this that Olaf acts the way he does.