He shies away from “maddening, ignoble struggles” (Gray), preferring instead to pretend to understand the struggles of the lower classes. As a classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University, Thomas Gray knew very little about the struggles of the common man. However, the attempt to establish a connection between him and those of the lower classes did not go unnoticed as the elegy became his best-known publication. The year before the publication of Elegy Written in a Country Cemetery, European countries experienced several public tax revolts, a slave revolt, and numerous natural disasters. All factors in a broader mistrust that separates ordinary people from the rich. Gray associates himself with the Everyman's misfortunes through this work, it is a way for him to connect with his own mortality. Gray reflects on death and how a person is remembered after they are gone. It could be argued that these considerations are a comparison between Gray's achievements and those of the working class. Gray is remembered for his literary achievements, even now, but the farmer whom Gray's narrator watches leaving the churchyard is remembered only for his momentary mention in the elegy. It is this awareness that drives his contemplation of the associations between Gray and the Everyman. Gray easily could have