During the summer, I have read Black Dog of Fate by Peter Balakian and Baghdad Without A Map and other misadventures in Arabia by Tony Horwitz. These stories are different from each other content wise, however they both show how the authors encountered their heritage. For both Balakian and Horwitz, getting accustomed to their culture was a growing process. In the beginning of their stories they were seeing things through an American point of view, not knowing beyond what the newspapers and media had said. At the conclusions of these stories, the authors grew to know and fully comprehend what really was behind the closed doors in America.
In Black Dog of Fate, Balakian illustrates how his Armenian background impacted him as being in the first generation of his family born and raised in America. In the beginning of his memoir, the young Balakian lacked interest in the “old country”. As a kid living in a heavily populated Jewish community, he was envious of his friends walking down the street with their parents to go to the synagogue. Through this feeling of jealousy, he felt as though his Armenian ancestry was stopping him from being like his peers. Because Peter’s grandmother and parents did not give him any information about his family’s past at that time, he did not get to know the similar history Jews and Armenians once shared. At the time of adolescence Armenia’s past put a strain in Peter’s relationship with his father after he wrote a paper on Turkey. “. . . the Turkish term paper marked a turning point; in its wake, my father became even more alien to me” (Balakian 95).
When Balakian got older his father sent him a letter. “We have a tremendous historical ancient background with strife against odds, bravery against treac...
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Both Peter Balakian and Tony Horwitz gave their own cultural input in their stories. Those stories showed how the authors became dynamic characters about their heritage. Balakian’s Black Dog of Fate told readers of how Peter started out as a boy not knowing of his ancestors’ dark past to an adult wanting people to know of the Armenian Genocide. Horwitz’s Baghdad Without A Map and other misadventures in Arabia gave readers a tour of the Middle East based on his experiences. The books gave in depth details beyond what is known in America. After reading, readers can easily tell that the authors of the two books grew closer to their specific heritage and learned more about it .
This book addresses the issue of race all throughout the story, which is while it is probably the most discussed aspects of it. The books presentation is very complex in many ways. There is no clear-cut stance on race but the book uses racist language. The racist language durin...
In the novel All The Shah’s Men we are introduced to Iran, and the many struggles and hardships associated with the history of this troubled country. The Iranian coup is discussed in depth throughout the novel, and whether the Untied States made the right decision to enter into Iran and provide assistance with the British. If I were to travel back to 1952 and take a position in the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) for the sole purpose of examining the American Foreign Intelligence, I would have to conclude that the United States should have examined their options more thoroughly, and decided not to intervene with Iran and Mossadegh. I have taken this position after great analysis, which is something that Eisenhower and his staff never did. By discussing the history of Iran, the Anglo-Iranian oil company, and Document NSC-68 I will try to prove once and for all that going through with the coup in Iran was a terrible mistake made by the United States.
Both authors rely on case studies of specific ethnic groups as a platform to push their respective arguments. For the purpose of this essay, only the Jewish and Black ethnic groups will be discussed since conjunctively they reflect the dichotomy of assimilation “success” and “failure”. One of the strengths of Sowell’s work though is how extensive and detailed he goes into ethnic groups. Not only does Sowell cover a large variety of ethnic groups, he also discusses differences within ethnic groups. Steinberg instead groups ethnic groups more
In Sherman Alexie’s “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” and “Dead Men’s Path”, the reader is given a glimpse into two different stories but share many similar characteristics of traditions. Tradition is the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information and cultures within a group of people from generation to generation. However, these two stories will reveal that the protagonists in these stories, Michael from “Dead Men’s Path” and Victor from “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona,” will ignore their own traditions that they face throughout the story. In other words, the protagonists are westernized and have forgotten their own culture, which reflects the theory of the melting pot. The ignorance of ancestry and traditions brings the worst fates into the lives of the protagonists in each story.
War and Peace in the Middle East by Avi Shlaim. In the novel War and Peace In the Middle East, author Avi Shlaim argues that Arab nations have been unable to escape the post-Ottoman syndrome. In particular, he describes how the various powers inside and outside the region have failed to produce peace. While some of Shlaim's arguments hinder the message, I agree with his overall thesis that the Middle East problems were caused and prolonged by the failure of both powers and superpowers to take into account the regional interests of the local states.
The victims of the Holocaust lose sight of who they are during this time and begin to live their life by playing a part they believe they were because of their race. Loman discussed the irony behind the cat-and-mouse metaphor that Spiegelman uses in his graphic novel in his article titled “’Well Intended Liberal Slop’: Allegories of Race in Spiegelman’s Maus”. In his article he states,
Philip Roth is the most prominent American novelist in American literature. His book, “Portney’s compliant” is one of the most important literatures for the ethnic group in the world especially for the Jews in America. According to Prof. Sasha Senderovich “Philip Roth’s book is the bible for the Jewish people.” (Lecture). Through the practice with cultural tradition and try to assimilate with the gentile world, Roth reveals his gloom with complain to his psychiatric, Dr. Spielvogel to free from orthodox Jewish tradition in the American society. Inversely, through goy’s behavior, lifestyle, food, and their anti-Semitic psycho, dragged up him back to his tradition. Therein, the juxtaposition between two cultures fabricates him with an enormous confusion and he felt rootless about his identity and end up with his complaint to the doctor. However, the experience of Alex life, established a statement that, “being minority in a society, for the first or second generation,
According to Amin Maalouf, “It seems clear that the Arab East still sees the West as a natural enemy. Against that enemy, any hostile action-be it political, military, or based on oil-is considered no more than legitimate vengeance. And there can be no doubt that the schism between these two worlds dates from the Crusades, deeply felt by the Arabs, even today, as an act of rape” (Amin Maalouf). When reflecting on The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, this quote always sticks out as the most powerful piece of Maalouf’s work. As a growing college student this quote brings harsh reality to the world I live in. I believe as you grow through life, you become more and more aware of the world around you through education. In order to be aware you must be educated; The Crusades Through Arab Eyes has done just that by opening my eyes to a world and viewpoint I have never before considered.
...ents what happened after the victim told his or her story to the readers. Perhaps that part was more important than the actual circumstance, because of what it did to people. Also, it accounted a relationship between those two generations joined together in discussion of what happened. In this case, it was Vladek and Art's - their relationship was negatively affected by the power of Vladek's past. Vladek was unable to move ahead with his life as a result of the trauma he received. His marriage with Mala was also destroyed because of old habits formed by his past. Confused and complicated emotions formed in Art for the overall sense of the book. This work showed how the past ruined the present and potentially the future as well. The stylistic features included in this comic, along with literary themes, created a peculiar book - dissimilar to other Holocaust works.
As I have shown, throughout his essays, Gordon establishes a narrative of the past in the Diaspora which is distinctly negative, drawing on images of the Jewish people as passive and parasitic, alienated from nature and labor and accordingly without a living culture. Through his ideology, Gordon establishes an idea of the perfect relationship between people, nature and labor; a relationship that must be withheld in order for a people to be a living, creative culture. Gordon asserts that the Jewish people have been kept apart from the natural sphere in their own land in which they developed as a people, and have been severed from direct contact with nature in the countries where they are living in Diaspora, thus creating a strictly negative identity for the Diasporic Jews. The Diaspora experience is presented by Gordon as an identity defining experience that is presupposed as part of the Jewish self-understanding. The ideology of Gordon indicates that the Diaspora was a degrading and negative experience for all Jews:
As a boy, Shteyngart was torn between the Russian culture and the American culture and sometimes it was hard to understand what he wanted and what he was taught. Growing up in a multicultural family, I can understand how Shteyngart must have felt. My great-grandmother’s father was the grandson of Jacob Hostettler, who was one of the founders of the Amish C...
By means of comic illustration and parody, Art Spiegelman wrote a graphic novel about the lives of his parents, Vladek and Anja, before and during the Holocaust. Spiegelman’s Maus Volumes I and II delves into the emotional struggle he faced as a result of his father’s failure to recover from the trauma he suffered during the Holocaust. In the novel, Vladek’s inability to cope with the horrors he faced while imprisoned, along with his wife’s tragic death, causes him to become emotionally detached from his son, Art. Consequently, Vladek hinders Art’s emotional growth. However, Art overcomes the emotional trauma his father instilled in him through his writing.
Joyce, James. “Araby.” The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter Eighth Edition. Eds. Jerome Beaty, Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. New York: W.W.Norton.
Iraq’s history is one of both prosperity and violence, and dates back to the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia. While dominated by a variety of civilizations, the region enjoyed a relatively stable society. Since the birth of Islam, the religion has been the dominant cultural belief of the region, and has made its way into the laws and ruling of the region. (InDepth Info, 2010)
The book I chose to read was The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian written by Sherman Alexie. The this novel focuses on is Indian culture. Although I don’t believe I have any biological ties to this culture, I was interested in learning about the culture because a few of my friends are Indian. I am not very aware about much of their culture and I felt that was something I should be more culturally aware of.