Literature serves as a reflective mirror of society, culture, and human nature. Two such works, “Transcendental Wild Oats” by Louisa May Alcott and “Who’s Irish” by Gish Jen, were written in different times and settings, but they share thematic parallels while offering unique perspectives on societal norms, family dynamics, and individual identity. In Transcendental Wild Oats, Alcott presents a satire critique of the Transcendentalist movement, particularly through the lens of the Fruitlands experiment. The story exposes the impracticality and idealism of the movement's adherents, embodied in the character of Mr. Peabody, who leads his family into a utopian agricultural community. Through exaggerated characters and situations, Alcott highlights …show more content…
Through the protagonist, an immigrant grandmother grappling with her identity in America, Jen explores the challenges of assimilating into a new culture while preserving one's cultural heritage. The story critiques the pressure on immigrants to conform to American norms while also shedding light on the generational clashes that arise from differing cultural values. By comparing the protagonist's inner conflict with external societal pressures, Jen offers a nuanced examination of identity formation and cultural adaptation. While Transcendental Wild Oats critiques idealism and societal movements from a historical perspective, Who's Irish tackles contemporary issues of cultural assimilation and immigrant experiences. Both stories, however, share a thematic focus on societal critique, albeit from different angles. Alcott's satire targets a specific historical movement, while Jen's narrative reflects on broader societal expectations and cultural dynamics. Together, they offer rich insights into the complexities of human nature, societal norms, and the pursuit of individual and communal
O'Connor, Flannery. "Good Country People." Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. Robert DiYanni. 5th ed. New York, NY: McGraw, 2002. 181-194.
I read a few chapters from Silas Houses novel A Parchment of Leaves its set in Kentucky. The story is about a young Cherokee Indian woman in the early 1900’s. The young woman’s name is vine she live in the hills of Kentucky in a place called Red Bud camp. She meets a young white Irish boy who her family is not too happy about the mother more than the father “them Irish ...
It is not out of line to expect Native Americans to live like their ancestors, and I agree with the way that O'Nell made the government look like the wrongdoers. She talks like "indians" are just part of stories or like they have not kept up with the times. This book points out many of the problems for native americans by bringing out problems in identity, culture, and depression dealing with the Flathead Tribe in Montana. The book is divided into three parts to accomplish this. Part 1 is about the American government's policies that were put on the reservations and how it affected the culture of the Flathead Tribe attached to that reservation. This is the base for is to come in the next two parts, which talk about how lonliness an pity tie into the identity and depression.
O’Conner, Flannery. “Good Country People.” Literature An Introduction To Fiction, Poetry, And Drama. Eds. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia 3rd ed. New York Longman, 2003. 247-261
‘Of Mice & Men’ is a novel written by John Steinbeck, set in the Great Depression era of the 1930’s tells of a journey of two itinerant workers in search of the American Dream which gives readers the real experience by taking them on an emotional rollercoaster. Three poems written by different poets share many similarities with the novel; ‘Brothers’’ by Andrew Forster, the title of the poem gives away a great deal as the poem is based on sibling rivalry between three siblings. Charlotte Mew’s ‘The Farmers bride’ is loosely based on attitudes towards women in the late 19th century and provides a stereotypical view on how women were objectified, and ‘Nettles’ by Vernon Scannell which illustrates a mother’s love and compassion toward her child. All four texts share many similarities all in the form of themes, historical context and writer input.
Perhaps one of the biggest issues foreigners will come upon is to maintain a strong identity within the temptations and traditions from other cultures. Novelist Frank Delaney’s image of the search for identity is one of the best, quoting that one must “understand and reconnect with our stories, the stories of the ancestors . . . to build our identities”. For one, to maintain a firm identity, elderly characters often implement Chinese traditions to avoid younger generations veering toward different traditions, such as the Western culture. As well, the Chinese-Canadians of the novel sustain a superior identity because of their own cultural village in Vancouver, known as Chinatown, to implement firm beliefs, heritage, and pride. Thus in Wayson Choy’s, The Jade Peony, the novel discusses the challenge for different characters to maintain a firm and sole identity in the midst of a new environment with different temptations and influences. Ultimately, the characters of this novel rely upon different influences to form an identity, one of which being a strong and wide elderly personal
Have you ever felt like you didn’t belong somewhere? Do you know what it feels like to be told you don’t belong in the place of your birth? People experience this quite frequently, because they may not be the stereotypical American citizen, and are told and convinced they don’t belong in the only place they see as home. In Gloria Anzaldúa’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Anzaldúa gives the reader an inside look at the struggles of an American citizen who experiences this in their life, due to their heritage. She uses rhetorical appeals to help get her messages across on the subliminal level and show her perspective’s importance. These rhetorical appeals deal with the emotion, logic and credibility of the statements made by the author. Anzaldúa
In a social setting the feeling of belongingness to a group is very important. If one is different and does not belong to a group that person is outcasted. The first story, “The Box” written by Riel Nason is about a character named Jeff who goes to a long time friends wedding and faces a number of obstacles. The second story is called “One, Two, Three Little Indians” written by Hugh Garner and focuses on the obstacles a native-canadian faces. Characters Jeff and Big Tom experience alienation and the difference in values which restrict them from achieving belongingness. Ultimately, it is seen that acceptance to the environment is the key to either success into integrating or failure to do so in certain circumstances.
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.
Novels that exhibit what the life is like for the people at ranch can help readers reflect on how they might react in comparable situation. George and Lennie who struggle to transcend the plight of inerrant farmworkers are followed by the novel Of Mice and Men written by John Steinbeck. Readers are positioned to respond to themes through Steinbeck’s use of conventions that are dispirit. Themes such as Freedom and confinement, loneliness, and racism are pivotal in the novel and draw out a range of responses from the readers.
Gish Jen’s “Who’s Irish” tells the story of a sixty-eight-year-old Chinese immigrant and her struggle to accept other cultures different from her own. The protagonist has been living in the United States for a while but she is still critical of other cultures and ethnicities, such as her son-in-law’s Irish family and the American values in which her daughter insists on applying while raising the protagonist’s granddaughter. The main character finds it very hard to accept the American way of disciplining and decides to implement her own measures when babysitting her granddaughter Sophie. When the main character’s daughter finds out that she has been spanking Sophie she asks her mother to move out of the house and breaks any further contact between them by not taking Sophie to visit her grandmother in her new place. The central idea of the story is that being an outsider depends on one’s perspective and that perspective determines how one’s life will be.
Louise Erdrich’s short story “American horse” is a literary piece written by an author whose works emphasize the American experience for a multitude of different people from a plethora of various ethnic backgrounds. While Erdrich utilizes a full arsenal of literary elements to better convey this particular story to the reader, perhaps the two most prominent are theme and point of view. At first glance this story seems to portray the struggle of a mother who has her son ripped from her arms by government authorities; however, if the reader simply steps back to analyze the larger picture, the theme becomes clear. It is important to understand the backgrounds of both the protagonist and antagonists when analyzing theme of this short story. Albetrine, who is the short story’s protagonist, is a Native American woman who characterizes her son Buddy as “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. The antagonist, are westerners who work on behalf of the United States Government. Given this dynamic, the stage is set for a clash between the two forces. The struggle between these two can be viewed as a microcosm for what has occurred throughout history between Native Americans and Caucasians. With all this in mind, the reader can see that the theme of this piece is the battle of Native Americans to maintain their culture and way of life as their homeland is invaded by Caucasians. In addition to the theme, Erdrich’s usage of the third person limited point of view helps the reader understand the short story from several different perspectives while allowing the story to maintain the ambiguity and mysteriousness that was felt by many Natives Americans as they endured similar struggles. These two literary elements help set an underlying atmos...
The destructive nature of cultural collision is symbolized when Emily’s lover, Rose, kills herself because of “how fuckin’ hard it is to be an Indian in this country” (Highway 97). The suicide of Rose, which happened when Rose “went head-on” into a “big 18-wheeler...like a fly splat against a windshield” shows the brutality of cultural collision (Highway 97). The rape of Zhaboonigan is an indicator of the violence inflicted on Natives (especially Native women), and functions as a metaphor for the “intrusive, destructive impact of one society on another” (Nothof 2). Cultural collision results in a fragmented society, where the subdued struggle with their identity as a result of the violent colonization of the dominant
The "Hills Like White Elephants." In The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume II. Edited by Paul Lauter et al.
Belasco, Susan, and Linck Johnson, eds. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 1190-1203. Print.