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Situational irony in brave new world
Native american literature essay
Summary of american literature on based on american indian storytelling
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Miner created a story concerning a tribe called Nacirema, it sounded so unfamiliar, but once it spelled backward it became familiar. People can recognize right away once Nacirema spelled backward and became ‘American’. In Miner’s essay, Nacirema sounds so far away and mysterious, they have many strange customs and traditions that hard to comprehend, but when ‘Nacirema’ were actually American, all those actions of Nacirema tribe, are much easier to understand. Miner incorporates double speak skill in the article ‘Nacirema’ he takes many regular situation or things and use double speak skill to cause those things like bathroom, tooth fillings, tooth paste, and tooth-brush seem rather unusual. Miner uses the art of double speak through his writing. …show more content…
Writer implied Nacirema as a tribe lives between Canada and Mexico, so reader got an idea that it could be America. When Miner wrote Nacirema is a rich natural habitat, he was trying to express Americans enjoy to spend money and live in a capitalistic society. He wrote Nacirema in heading so folks who read it can denote it as American. Miner mentioned about American’s daily hygiene routine when he wrote verbal irony about the holy-mouth-man and secretive mouth-rite of Nacirema tribe. Moreover, he stated that Nacirema’s founding father as Notgnihsaw, which are the backward alphabets of Washington. As readers go through these verbal ironies in his writings, readers can laugh about it along the way. Verbal irony had made me enjoy Miner’s story more; his uses of verbal irony to describe Nacirema had made me feel some of my every day behaviors are kind of ridiculous. Miner uses situation irony several times in his texts. For instance, when mothers pass practice of secret body rituals to their kids. Author use situational irony and depicted the traditional transfer from mother to kids of the body ritual as masochistic and mystic. In Nacirema, people use their shrines to do secret rituals, it sounds like people of Nacirema are superstitious, but actually he’s describing American use bathroom daily like rituals. Effect of author’s usage of situational irony on me is that sometimes we do things, as culture …show more content…
Shrines that Nacirema use for their secret ceremonials are bathrooms. Group of vestal maidens work in temple to heal the sick were actually nurses or medical workers in hospital, and bundle of hog hairs are toothbrush. Miner depicts daily routine like brushing our teeth in uncanny way like using bundle of hog hairs into mouth as daily private mouth-rite ceremony. Breast augmentation was a unique ritual to make women’s breasts big in Miner’s article. Miner manipulates language by describe regular human behaviors into something odd, many things Nacirema act created allusions as Nacirema is from an exotic tribe from ancient time. Reader can get Minor’s sense of humor when he portrayed American as Nacirema, and when he referred a dentist as Holy-mouth-men. I saw the humor of Miner’s story. Miner’s use of ironic humor on regular daily routine, made reader to feel what those activities were something bad we did toward our body. His manipulation of language made regular activities of human beings seem uncivilized. His way of ironic humor made me know that sometimes what we do daily and considered as a natural things to do, might be rather odd for people from a different culture to
Miner does an exceptional job in disguising the Nacirema as Americans. Some of the things he disguises are the bathroom, which he says is a cleansing shrine. He disguises the medicine chest as the main device in the shrine, a bundle of hog hairs on a stick as a toothbrush, and magical potions as medicine (Miner).
The Nacierma culture was mentioned in this article because, according to anthropologists, they have a variety of human behavior practices which are considered as being highly unusual and extreme compared to other diverse cultures who also have unusual and bizarre forms of human behavior. The Nacierma practice these strange behaviors in order to keep their bodies clean, healthy, pure, and disease-free, where they go through intense measures in order to do so. This culture was also mentioned because, according to anthropologists, they are
An element of literature in The Interlopers is situational irony. Irony is the contrast between an actual outcome and what the reader or the characters expect. Irony is important to this story because a major family conflict would have ended, but an event occurred and changed that. Irony is in the interlopers when the wolves came and ate the men. When Georg says, “I will be your friend” it was major irony (Saki 309). The whole story the reader thought that the two men would surely kill each other when they met, but they made up. Also, when Ulrich said “Wolves” there is a turning point fueled by Irony (Saki 310).
Adjusting to another culture is a difficult concept, especially for children in their school classrooms. In Sherman Alexie’s, “Indian Education,” he discusses the different stages of a Native Americans childhood compared to his white counterparts. He is describing the schooling of a child, Victor, in an American Indian reservation, grade by grade. He uses a few different examples of satire and irony, in which could be viewed in completely different ways, expressing different feelings to the reader. Racism and bullying are both present throughout this essay between Indians and Americans. The Indian Americans have the stereotype of being unsuccessful and always being those that are left behind. Through Alexie’s negativity and humor in his essay, it is evident that he faces many issues and is very frustrated growing up as an American Indian. Growing up, Alexie faces discrimination from white people, who he portrays as evil in every way, to show that his childhood was filled with anger, fear, and sorrow.
In “This Is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona,” Alexie creates a story that captures the common stereotypes of Native Americans. For instance, in the story the narrator states, “Who does have money on a reservation, except the cigarette and fireworks salespeople?” (Alexie). This quotation shows that the narrator addresses the idea that all Native Americans must own businesses that sell fireworks and/ or cigarettes in order to be successful. In this example, Victor is shown to not identify with the Native Americans because he does not pursue the same job opportunities as many Native Americans do. Victor's character is used as a contrast to the stereotypes that , there he represents reality. Another instance in which the author incorporates a stereotype about Native Americans is when Thomas-Builds-the-Fire first makes conversation with Victor. Thomas-Builds-the-Fire informs Victor about the news of Victor's ...
He then states that man 's only hope is to change their unwanted characteristics with the help of various rituals and ceremonies. In order to perform these ceremonies a shrine which is present in every household is necessary. This leads one to believe that as individuals, we are going to make mistakes and have imperfections in life. However, through our beliefs, church, and faith; then we are able to get through or survive our circumstance. Miner later becomes more in depth in his thinking and reporting. He discussed various “rituals” performed daily by the Naciremas. An example is the use of shrine. Miner states, “The family enters the shrine room which I see as a bathroom. In the bathroom each member bows his head before the font or sinks and begins a rite of cleansing”. Shrine use can be interpreted as the daily routine of waking up, entering the bathroom and removing items from the medicine cabinet to wash face, and brush teeth. Miner continues using cliché’s throughout his article. In another part of the article, he describes “holy mouth-men” in my opinion, viewed as medical or witch doctors. A phrase used in the article, “Were it not for the rituals of the mouth, they believe that their teeth would fall out, their gums bleed, their jaws shrink, their friend 's dessert them and their lovers reject them.” Basically, he is referring to a dentist. Most of Nacirema culture makes it a routine/ritual to make sure a dentist is seen yearly to make sure their teeth are clean, cavity free, gingivitis free, etc. The Nacirema’s might take this for granted other cultures or (outsiders) may not have this opportunity and see it as a need. The few examples sighted would illustrate the vanity side of Nacirema’s in which so much is expected and taken for
In “Body Ritual among the Nacirema”, Horace Miner (1956) revisits the rituals of a North American group, the Nacirema, as first described by Professor Linton in the early 1900s. Miner depicts these people as quite vain; obsessive over money, appearance and health. While the economic status of a Nacirema individual is extremely important, nothing compares to the significance of the rituals of the body. These rituals tend to involve various steps that allow the Nacirema people to present themselves to the world in their fittest, most beautiful form. The majority of these rituals are performed by the individual in their own home, in extreme privacy. The body is viewed as a disgusting vessel, in need of constant upkeep to be presentable to others. The Nacirema home contains one or more ‘shrines’, devoted to transforming the body into the definition of health and beauty. The main purpose of the shrine is to hold charms and magical potions, bought from
Susan Gable’s Trifles is focused on discovering the killer of a local farmer in the twentieth century. In this play the amount of irony is abundant and the irony always relates to solving the murder. The two types of irony that are most easily discerned in Trifles are verbal and situational irony. Irony is when an author uses words or a situation to convey the opposite of what they truly mean. Verbal irony is when a character says one thing but they mean the other. This can be seen in the way the men dismiss the women. Situational irony is when the setting is the opposite of what one would think it would be for what the play is. This is seen through the setting being in a kitchen and various other aspects of the
“The Most Dangerous Game” is an adventure story, written by Richard Connell. Rainsford, the protagonist of the book, is caught in an ironic situation throughout the story. Richard uses irony in this story to give it dramatic emphasis. Irony is when the reader expects one thing, but in reality, it is not what it seems to be. There are two main types of irony in this story, which causes the reader to pause and revaluate what he has read.
In the article, Body Ritual among the Nacirema, by Horace M. Miner, some of these same problems are faced.
In Guy de Maupassant’s story, The Necklace, he utilizes situational irony in order to highlight the theme. He displays this irony in order to reveal several themes that can be observed in the story. One of the major themes in this short story is how appearances can be misleading.
In reading one, Body Rituals Among the Nacirema, since this is my second time reading this article this year I have a clear understanding of what the Nacirema tribe believes to be deviant and how they seek to get the deviance out of their daily lives. This community believes that their bodies are deviant, hence men and women would visit a godly like medicine man to perform what we would consider as deviant medical
the play, it seemed that Othello was the only one who didn't know the truth.
The Nacirema beliefs regarding the human body and the functions of the human body are the major focus of Miner’s article, and Miner describes the rituals associated with the beliefs. According to the article, the Nacirema people partake in daily rituals in their homes in a sacred shrine that each home is equipped with. The flashier the shrine, the wealthier a family is considered and the wealthiest families have multiple shrines within their homes. The rituals conducted in the shrine are sacred secrets, and only discussed with children approaching the age of initiation into the ritualistic society. Miner then describes the charms and potions used within the sacred rituals, provided by the medicine men of the Nacirema people. Mine...
The first thing to register when considering irony in Socrates, is that in no passage of Plato 's work does Socrates or any of his associates refer to him as an ironist. Rather, it was his opponents who accused him to be an eiron, that is, someone who practices irony . This, has to do with the fact that up until Socrates ' times, the standard understanding of the Greek word eironeia was exclusively that of deception or dissembling . More precisely, as David Wolfsdorf shows discussing a passage from Oppian 's On Hunting, erioneia '[...] is the use of deception to profit at the expense of another by presenting oneself as benign in an effort to disarm the intended victim [...] ' .