How do you define a word such as culture? How do you take a cloud and pin it down? It's very tricky. Culture is such a complicated thing to define yet, ironically, everyone can easily say something about. I, for instance, think of spaghetti dinner night with my grandparents when I hear the word culture. However, one of my close friends has said that she thinks of culture when she hears a christmas carol on the radio. So what is it? Is culture about spaghetti dinner, or christmas carols? Actually, it's both! That's very cliche, I know, but it's true none the less. Culture can be anything or everything that has to do with traditions and/or habits which are inherited by one's nationality, ethnicity, and family. In addition, culture can be developed through the interactions between other peoples and traditions. Understand that that's a very rough definition that could be interpreted in many different ways. But isn't that culture is? Something that is seen in many different ways by many different people. Culture is all around us: it's in our homes, in our schools, in our food, in our music, and even on our book shelves.
 |
| Native Son by Richard Wright |
One novel in particular that shows the effects of culture is Native Son by Richard Wright. The protagonist, Bigger Thomas (a.k.a. the "native son"), is the ultimate product of his surroundings. Allow me to set the scene. The place is Chicago, the time is somewhere in the 1930s, and the situation is far from comfortable for Bigger Thomas. After growing up as a "black boy" (see other works by Richard Wright) in a racist community, he is suddenly given an opportunity in a world that seems to be without such hope. His employer is a wealthy white man who claims that the wishes to help Bigger. Of course, this is all too good to be true and Bigger ends up brutally killing his boss's daughter. Typical. The rest of the novel is split between one big chase scene and a whole lot of brooding over why and how Bigger could have done something so awful.
 |
| Chicago, 1930 |
Well, conveniently enough, the title of the novel is the biggest hint of them all. It suggests that Bigger is "native" to his environment. In other words, he is a product of his surroundings. Being brought up in a community that saw black men as being violent and sinister animals made him believe that he couldn't be anything but that. He had hopes of being more, sure, but they were dashed away by a society that lent him nothing to hold on to. Culture tends to be seen as having a very positive connotation, but it is such a large word that one must also consider the other side of the spectrum.
