The culture of a community invariably determines the social structures and the formation of a society. Developed over time, culture is the collection of beliefs and values that a group of people maintain together. Culture is never constant, and thought to be continually renewed over years as new ideas and concepts become mainstream. It ranges from how people live, day to day topics for conversations, religion, and even entertainment. It is analogous to guidelines, or the rulebook of the said group of people. Society, on the other hand, emanates from the social structure of the community. It is the very institutions to which create a regulated and acceptable form of interaction between peoples. Indeed, culture and society are so perversely intertwined in a …show more content…
It is the undertaking of a journey by one man alone, Qindil Muhammad al-Innabi, to find a society with absolute perfection. Qindil travels through the fictitious lands of “the homeland”, Al Mashriq, Halba, Haira, and Aman— each land with its own unique concept of social structure behind the way the people live, religion, and government systems. Qindil observes and notes the stark differences between each country toward his own perceptions of the perfect society. It is also apparent that beliefs such as simplicity, justice, or freedom match how the society develops in contrast to one another. Naguib Mahfouz writes the novel to comment on the varying outcomes of society based on the inhabitant 's values and traditions. Other prominent African literatures also give way to substantial insights of their very own social organizations via culture as well, particularly seen in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and The River Between by Ngugi Wa Thiong 'O. It is without doubt that culture serves as the fundamental driver behind the development of a
Culture is a difficult concept to put into words. “Traditionally anthropologists have used the term culture to refer to a way of life - traditions and customs - transmitted through learning” (Kottak, et al. 2008: p.11). Children inherit their culture, as well as social norms and ethics, through a process called enculturation. Enculturation, in essence, determines who a person will become, because culture defines who a person is. More specifically, “Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs arts, morals, laws, customs, and any other capabilities or habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Taylor, 1971/1951: p. 1). In modern society, our traditions and customs come from a variety of different sources. Television,
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe tells the story of how one unified Umuofian community falls due to its own inner conflicts, as well as to the arrival of Christian missionaries. Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart to change the brutish image of Africa, for the Western world. The use of changing perspectives greatly aided Achebe in accurately portraying Africa as colorful, diverse and complex. For Westerners, viewing Africans as more than tribal and barbaric was a new concept, of which Achebe helped usher in. The story is told through the eyes of many Umuofians, which gives the reader a personal sense for the individuals within the tribe. When all the individual pieces of the story are brought together, the sifting perspectives creates a vast overview of the community, while also deepening the readers since for the tribe by allowing personal details to show through. Achebe captures the complexity of the Umuofia community by changing the perspective from which the story is being told frequently.
Societies are widely portrayed across literature as groups of people living together in an organized community while sharing a similar culture. However, not all societies have developed properly to be classified as civilized. A civilized society is one that has been brought to a stage of social, cultural, and moral development, causing it to be considered more advanced. In the novel, Things Fall Apart, author Chinua Achebe depicts the Ibo society as civilized through their egwugwu justice system, worshipping of a spiritual Oracle, and patriarchal dominance.
Chinua Achebe is well known as the father of African literature. His first novel, “Things Fall Apart” is an interesting story full of tragedy, which takes place in Umuofia, Nigeria in the 19th century. Achebe sought to correct European writers who were misrepresenting Africans and life in Nigeria. According to Nnoromele (2000), the Igbo clan is a self-sufficient, complex, and vigorous group of African people. Achebe wrote “Things Fall Apart” to accurately represent the conflict between Nigeria’s white colonial government and the culture of the native Igbo people. “Things Fall Apart” is the perfect title for this novel. As the reader takes the journey through this interesting, yet tragic story, it becomes clear how, and why things fell apart.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a novel primarily about the life of an Igbo leader that takes place in Umuofia, a fictional village in Nigeria. Although this novel was published in 1958, many details about the societal structure and gender roles are present in many societies toady. In particular, in the Umuofian tribe as described in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the role of women and children as well as the work apportioned between women, men, and children is outlined by strict conventions and expectations placed upon by Igbo society.
The Journey of Ibn Fattouma by Naguib Mahfouz, is a folklore that pertains to the traditional cultural beliefs and practices of the pre – Islamic World. The storyline is a representation of a Medieval allegory that is fictional on its face but does hold some truth that is consistent with the set of ideas that is the framework of the State of Islam. The allegory describes the series of event that occur during the pilgrimage of an Egyptian Muslim traveler. Twenty-one-year-old Ibn Fattouma, is the narrator of the folklore. It is an explanation as to why the Muslim traveler embarks on a journey across the historical Middle East in the effort to find a utopian society.
Throughout the world, each and every country possesses their own individual cultural customs in which they live by; however, a truly civilized society expresses an understanding in scientific findings and how they affect their lives, a strong sense of relative morality, and a judiciary system of rule enforcement. The Igbo society illustrated in Chinua Achebe’s historical fiction novel, Things Fall Apart, represents an uncivilized society in which the natives lack a moral bases for manners and conduct, hold mythological predispositions about the natures of life, and practice immoral religious precautions.
A society’s culture defines how its members communicate and cooperate with each other. It’s reflects learned behaviours. The basic elements of culture are social structure, language, communication, religion, and values. Basic to every society is its social structure, the whole background that bounds the roles of individuals within the culture, and individual’sliberty of movement within the society.
Society couldn't work without social standards that help with representing conduct and values, and culture couldn't exist without societal impacts to make it. They should exist together with the goal for people to exist in a composed way. Note that culture can, and changes, after some time as societal standards change, however the individuals from that society administer that change so the individual individuals from the general public have a level of control over the way of life.
Culture is a learned set of beliefs, values, norms, customs, traditions, ideas, and attitudes that contributes to human behavior within a region. Culture is a common way of being and thinking that is passed from generation to generation to the members within a society. These commonalities within communities create a pattern that is recognizable and distinct from one region to the next. The social structure, religion, geography, and lifestyle is what shapes, an ever changing, culture; the shared belief and social system, along with their way of life, is what makes a societies individuals part of that culture. Culture can be seen in all regions of the world, including Yemen, a country that is rich in culture even though it may not be rich economically.
Culture consists of the beliefs, behaviors, objects, and other characteristics common to the members of a particular group or society. Through culture, people and groups define themselves, conform to society's shared values, and contribute to society. Thus, culture includes many societal aspects: language, customs, values, norms, mores, rules, tools, technologies, products, organizations, and institutions. Sociologists define society as the people who interact in such a way as to share a common culture. The term society can also have a geographic meaning and refer to people who share a common culture in a particular location. For example, people living in arctic climates developed different cultures from those living in desert cultures.Culture and society are intricately related. A culture consists of the “objects” of a society, whereas a society consists of the people who share a common culture.
-Culture plays an important part in how a country operates. It is an integrated system of behaviour within a given society
Each custom is in turn the sum total of statistically dominant individual behaviour. It may also be define as the symbolic patrimony upon which a community bases its modes of doing, acting or behaving and thinking which are developed or adopt by that community from the simplest to the most complex, Waterman 1986. Culture is a trend that influence citizenship education, in a sense it is the total way of life of a people. This involves the way a person, look, speak, plant and reap crops, dress, the type of music they listen, the way they produce goods, recreate etc. culture can be seen though; architecture, craft and methods of food
Culture is a social system that includes values, traditions, tools, clothing, religion, art, and behaviors (Tomić & Schoeffel, 2017). Culture is shared among the individuals and is passed from generation to generation (Tomić & Schoeffel, 2017). (36 words)
Culture, a word almost everyone hears whenever there is sociological discussion that transcends various formats ranging from scholarly articles to local news station broadcasts. Culture contains a myriad of definitions depending on the perspective and lenses used to view it. Since it is a difficult concept to grasp at first, we do not realize the true scale of culture and its responsibility in dictating many actions within our daily lives. Different cultures are found all throughout the world, from the ever increasing western culture to smaller tribal cultures such as the wintu in California (“Vanishing Voices”). What must be taken into account is the fact that culture is heavily intertwined within society, since they both interact with each other in some way.