The two works, Lanterns on the Levee: the Recollections of Planter's
             Son by William A. Percy and All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw by
             Theodore Rosengarten are very representative of the mind of the South
             during the era in which they were written. Though they are simply the
             stories of two men the works have often been used as a reasonable
             comparison between the lives of the social elite whites in the rural south
             and the lives of the financially and socially oppressed blacks.
             Although it is impossible to create a complete picture of the lives of
             all people living within the conditions of the antebellum south, through
             the stories of just two men, the messages of these two works express some
             hints of the ideals of each class represented. Additionally, within these
             two works can be found reasons for individual successes of these two men
             and by default those who shared their respective statuses.
             Within the text of these two works there are many points of comparison that
             leave the reader with both questions and answers to some of the most
             perplexing questions of the antebellum era.
             The comparison, between these two works and specifically between these
             two men gives many people, reared within today's politically correct
             educational system, a foundation for the reality of oppression after
             emancipation. The ways in which some people were kept down while others
             were elevated is often a fascination of historians and even novice readers
             interested in the era. Not the least of which, is the striking impression
             that these two groups lived in completely separate worlds interwoven only
             The most foundational expressions of the answers to the reasons for
             the evaluation of both Percy and Shaw as the ideal representatives of their
             class can be summated in a few social distinctions. The one distinction
             that rises to the top, is clearly the distinction of economic succ...