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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
I always look forward to reading your blog posts (and anything you write really) because I love your writing style. As soon as I read the title of your blog, I knew that you had taken a different route with answering the essential question. I love the idea that there is no true definition of culture because, like culture, one's definition is influenced by other people and experiences and is different for everyone. I just wanted to mention that I loved your transition between your discussion of culture into your discussion of Native Son. That "even on our bookshelves" phrase really set the stage for your next point. Anyways, your analysis of how culture affects Bigger is great! You touched upon to social climate and I enjoyed the illusion to "Black Boy" by Richard Wright as well. You really left me thinking about the positive and negative effects of culture by the end of your essay. I started considering all the current events in France, Syria and the suicide bombings in Mali and everything else. Violence is becoming a part of many cultures. As I was watching FOX News today, some of the newscasters were worried that some generations are becoming intolerant towards violence because they are so used to seeing it. Do you think our society is is becoming dehumanized? Less attached? Cold? Just some food for thought!
ReplyDeleteI love your title! Also, I agree with your interpretation of culture, in which culture is so vast, and cultural diffusion is everywhere. Also, I like how you include your own experience with the definition of culture. To me, culture is a valuable thing that no one can take away from me. Furthermore, I love your last sentence, in which cultural influence plays a different role in each person. Not only you incorporate theme into your post, you also include your understanding in the last sentence. However, I also believe the characteristics of each person determine the role of cultural influence in his or her life.
ReplyDeleteI love this! Anything that has to do with writing with your name as its author is gold to be honest. I always look forward to reading anything that you write because of your amazing writing style. One thing that I loved about this post is how your voice comes through, as I was reading this, I felt like you were talking to me face-to-face. Since you were talking about the many definitions of culture I would like to share mine. To me, culture is when Caribbean music is on with bright colors surrounding me, along with the squash soup that Haitians make every new years eve. I feel really close to my culture around the holiday season because I am brought back to many things that remind me of my culture. I could not agree with your title more because, like my blog post, everyone's culture is different and there will always be different views on the word.
ReplyDeleteI truthfully could not find your blog post, forgetting that it's on the class website. I love your perspective on this essential question because it is an ongoing topic in my period 3 class. I've recently noticed that culture can be found through hairstyles, which in fact is quite different. This blog post gave a lot of insight and was very comfortable, the pictures and the content. Nice work
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