Longo |1 Literature Across Culture 1 EL 3500 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Analytical Essay Debbie Longo Longo |2 Literature as always remains as society's personal history lesson. As time unravels and generations become smarter, more diverse and more inquisitive to the mysteries of life, this fact becomes increasingly evident. The works of Junot Diaz has proven to be a part of this history lesson. More specifically, Junot Diaz's, very first novel, 'The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao' does just that by highlighting the cultural differences among people who are in actuality quite similar in many ways. Because of Diaz’s comparison between the life of an immigrant in the Dominican Republic and the United States, he ensures that
The poet quickly establishes an ‘us’ and ‘them’ narrative structure which he uses to criticise his European education and the lack of black history in his schooling. He explains how he has been taught about such iconic British historical events as the Battle of Hastings (1066) and major fictional characters like Dick Wittington, but not Toussaint L’Ouverture, leader of a revolution on the island of Haiti led by slaves who eventually overcame their French colonisers and established Haitian independence. He goes on in a similar manner explaining how he has learnt about ‘de man who discovered the balloon’ and ‘de cow who jump over de moon’ but not about Nanny of the Maroons, a Jamaican national hero who escaped from a life of slavery and formed the Jamaican Maroons, a community of runaway slaves who became a guerrilla army freeing other slaves and destroying plantations. Similarly, the speaker explains that while he has been taught about Lord Nelson, Columbus, Florence Nightingale, and Old King Cole, he has not heard a word said about Shaka or Mary Seacole, a Jamaican nurse who saved the lives of
He also states that Americans bring this image up to avoid being brought to the table. Diaz says “you raise something so you can silence it forever”. This relates to Oscar Wao because of how the Dominican community is viewed in the novel. Diaz states that his novel is a metaphor and allows people to get engaged in the Dominican American community. This is further emphasized when the interviewer tells Diaz that he knows so much more about the Dominicans just by reading the novel.
Likewise, such is the case with King Phillip’s war in seventeenth century colonial America. Thus Jill Lepore’s book, The Name of War: King Phillip’s War and the Origins of American Identity, is a tremendous undertaking. However, Lepore steps out of the box and examines this historical event from a unique and interesting perspective. In 1999 when Lepore wrote The Name of War, she was an assistant professor of History at Boston University. Since then she moved on to Harvard University and became the Chair of the History and Literature program in 2003 and was “named Harvard College Professor in 2012.” Lepore received her undergraduate degree in English, her masters in American Culture and her Ph.D. in American Studies she is also a contributing writer to the New Yorker Magazine.
In addition, the author appropriately uses gender and life course (different generations of people) as other methodological tool to categorize identity, defining types of being Ticuanense according to age (especially adolescence), and the acquired influence from Ticuani (macho and ranchero’s behavior for instance) for those living in New York (which also export gangs), visiting Ticuani as a rite of passage or bringing in children to their hometown. The richest concept in my opinion the author gives (besides transnational
Due to Malcolm X’s past, he had never been in front of such an abundant amount of information. He seemed interested in any topic that involved history, religion and facts. Prison was the first time Malcolm X lived away from his norm. He was a man from the streets and he was now locked away in the penitentiary. Whereas, Colombo asserts that culture plays a large role in how a human being prospers.
The plot consists of this African-American man, Milkman, pursuing his own identity by discovering the truth about his family’s history. The story takes place in the United States during the time that the African-American people are already free in most places, but still face severe treatments and injustices. They have to be subordinate to the white man at all times and accept the abuse. However, Morrison choses to lead the plot in a way that the racism against the African-Americans is seen badly and she is always criticizing this idea of white being superior to any other color. Therefore, Morrison uses “whiteness” as a symbol in the novel so she can criticize the treatment of African-Americans by the whites and the legacy of slavery.
Fiction can be a great tool to broaden one’s outlook on the world. In the essay “An Unquiet Awakening” by Mordecai Richler; shows how fictitious literature can have a humanizing effect by allowing the reader to draw parallels between the main character and his/herself. Through parallel narrative Richler shows the reader how by establishing parallels between himself, the main character of the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Baumer, and the author of the book, Erich Maria Remarque, he realizes there is more going on outside of his little Montreal neighborhood. As a teen Mordecai Richler never really had much attention from the ladies, the lack of attention from the women had driven him to become interested in reading books and secluding himself from the outside world. Due to the lack of will to socialize, Richler kept to himself causing him to want nothing to do with the outside world.
Tracy Carrasquillo Professor Hopkins AML 2010 6 October 2012 “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” Washington Irving’s, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is a short story that was written in 1820 and is considered one of the earliest American fiction stories still read today. “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” chronicles the life of Ichabod Crane and the townspeople of Sleepy Hollow. It shows the characters in this story crave status and focuses on material possessions as a measure of worth. This is not a tale of superstition and fables as some may think, but a tale of selfishness and greed. Irving accentuates that society is captivated by material wealth and fulfilling one’s desires as their priorities.
The relationship between our two nations turned sour shortly after Fidel Castro forcibly took control of the island in the late 1950’s. The embargo, put in place just a couple years later was, as Patrick Doherty (2009) pointed out in his article published in Washington Weekly, done “in the vain hope that doing so would lead to the downfall of the island’s Communist regime” (p.10). Fifty years later, the embargo, even with the few changes made to it over those many years, is still as it was in 1962. The embargo is “one of the last great historical anachronisms of the Cold War, outliving the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, despite the fact that it has never accomplished what it was supposed to do” (Doherty, 2009, p.10). The feelings that the United States needs to put aside our differences with Cuba has been a topic of discussion not only here in America, but also around the world.