Analysis Of Maxine Trottier 's Three Songs For Courage

Everyone is unique in this world. They may be different because of their background culture, customs and beliefs as it changes them throughout their lives. In the novel “The Light in the Forest”, a 15 year old boy called True Son experiences two very different cultures that has irreconcilable differences. When True Son was 4 years old, he was adopted by an Indian tribe. Since then, he has been taught the cultures and customs of Native Indians. But soon afterwards, he was exposed to the “Whites” cultures and beliefs. Within the novel, there are characters who play parallel roles from both sides of each culture (Indians and “Whites” that relate to True Son).

When family traditions or arguments are started, they often continue on for a long while, and most of the time, they do more harm than good. In “The Interlopers” by Saki, two neighbors go into the forest to fight to the death over the land they both think they deserve. And in “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost, two neighbors have to rebuild a wall between their lands every spring, even when one of the neighbors thinks it’s not necessary. Saki and Frost use conflict, metaphors, and characterization to convey that family traditions sometimes create barriers that divide people and cause unnecessary hatred.

ow understand what culture and dominant culture is. But how can the dominant culture in

The poem “The White Porch” by Cathy Song is an illustration of maturity and coming of age. There is an innocent tone to the beginning of the poem with sensual undertones as the writing progress’s. In the poem, a woman is reminiscing about her young womanhood as she sits on her porch awaiting her presumed lover. Song creates the character of the woman to be of a homemaker, describing her duties taking care of laundry, having a cake in the oven and snapping beans in her lap. Through the visualization that Song creates it is assumed that the woman is pregnant, and as she is waiting for her husband she thinks back to the things she herself used to do when she was younger with her own mother. She is reflecting on the way her mother raised her thinking about how she wants to raise her own child. The speaker admits to sneaking in her lover late at night behind her mother’s back, but does not seem to feel remorseful because all her decisions led to where she is in her life now. Cathy Songs poem “The White Porch” portrays the transition of a girl into a woman using symbolism, imagery and simile.

In Citizen: An American Lyric written by Claudia Rankine, there is a passage where a man is stopped because he fits the description of a “criminal”. The speaker faces immense trauma just trying to relay to the officer that he is not the perpetrator they are looking for. In fact he is just another person trying to get home from a long day at the office. The officers refuse to listen which angers the victim and causes him to curse at the officer saying, “Go ahead hit me motherfucker.” (Rankine 107) While the victim could not have been held for the original reason, he was now charged with speeding. The victim was then taken down to the station on new charges. After being wrongfully targeted, held, fingerprinted, and stripped, he was finally let

Have you ever wondered how powerful culture can be and how can it affect you?

Since the inception of human civilization there have been countless cultures and societies which have helped shape the current world today as we know it. The modern human race dates back more than 200,000 years and in that time frame many cultures have risen to great virtue and success only to deteriorate or cease to exist altogether. First before examining one of these cultures we must know what culture truly means. The Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Culture Center defines culture as a “dynamic social system,” containing the beliefs, behaviors, values and norms of a “specific organization, group, society or other collectivity” learned, shared, internalized, and changeable by all members of the society (Watson, 2010). In

Culture is the complex whole including customs, law, morals, belief, knowledge, arts and other abilities and habits that man acquires as a member of society. Culture occurs naturally in an individual's interactions in the society building his/her identity right from time of birth. Culture is acquired by people through interactions in the society ADDIN EN.CITE Lopes2006458(Lopes P., 2006)45845817Lopes P.,Culture and Stigma: Popular Culture and the Case of Comic BooksSociological ForumSociological Forum387-4142132006Springer08848971http://www.jstor.org/stable/4540949( HYPERLINK l "_ENREF_1" o "Lopes P., 2006 #458" Lopes P., 2006). Popular culture includes social life aspects engaged in the public sphere. The determination of a popular culture is possible through interactions between people's everyday activities. Popular culture is influenced in the modern day by mass media that portray different aspect of the society including dressing style, greetings, eating habits and slang among others ADDIN EN.CITE Williams J.M.2010460(Williams J.M. & Rodgers J.S.,

In the first chapter of The Rhetorical Power of Pop Culture by Deanna Sellnow, the author defines popular culture and explains the importance of studying the subject. Sellnow begins with a short explanation of ethics to convey that the influence popular culture has is not always used ethically. Secondly, Sellnow compares the different contexts of culture, elitist and diversity, to explain what popular culture is not. Popular culture is compiled of everyday things that influence people through subtle messages such as what is appropriate and inappropriate, good and bad, and so on.

Culture is a large part of every person’s life, it is what makes each person unique. Within culture there are many aspects such as food, music, clothing, tradition, and many more. Since culture makes up such a large part of our day to day lives, it is almost always responsible shaping and informing our view on the world.

Jacques Derrida had once said that culture is something in which "everything is arranged so that it is this way." I believe that culture is the opposite as it creates the way in which you perceive external forces rather then it being the external forces arranged in a specific way. Culture therefore allows one to become informed about foreign cultures to which one is then to perceive the culture a specific way. Culture is the multitude of many factors in which it consistently informs one 's perception of the world surrounding them as well as the individuals.

Literature is the window to realizing the negatives of society and how destructive certain norms can be. Readers are brought into a completely different story than their own, but by using similar issues in today’s world, the readers can actually learn from the story and its overall message. All writers write for a purpose, whether it’s for a new meaning to life, to live a different life than our own, or to impact others on an emotional level by teaching them to see the importance of the little things. As a reader, you search for pieces of literature that interest you whether you find the story like your own, or wish you lived the life in the story. By using issues in today’s within their works, authors are able to grab the reader's attention long enough for them to get across what they wanted to get across. Often in many works of literature, writers use societal issues as their basis for the work’s themes and symbols. By doing so, this allows the reader to question the morality behind social norms and how impactful certain ideals can be in people’s lives.

A boy is dragged to the grocery store by his mom. Every aisle he passes he pulls something off the shelf and pleads to his mom, “Can I get this please, please, please, please?” Of course the mom says “no” and ignores the interests of her child. The boy becomes upset that her mom won’t let him get anything he wants and for the rest of the shopping trip, there is tension between the two. Similarly, in the passages Confetti Girl by Diana Lopez and Tortilla Sun by Jennifer Cervantes, both narrators are having conflict with their parents. Lina and her father don’t see eye to eye; likewise, Izzy and her mother don’t see eye to eye over a problem. In Confetti Girl and Tortilla Sun, both narrators’ conflicts create tension between themselves and their parents.

“Pop culture shapes our ideas of what is normal and what our dreams can be and what our roles are […]” quoted by Gloria Steinem. Culture has a great influence on the way people view the world and others as seen in the stories By any other name by Santha Rama Rau, Everyday Use by Alice Walker, and Two Kinds by Amy Tan.

Juliette has the power to drain people's lives with only a touch of her skin. Tahereh Mafi's young adult fantasy, romance novel, Shatter Me, is a captivating story that lets readers dive into Juliette's unusual teenage life. Set in the future, Juliette was born with a unique gift giving her the power to kill anyone with her touch. She is seen as a threat to society, so she is locked away and forced to use her power against her will. However, she meets Adam who helps her embrace her power and maybe even escape. Juliette must decide how to use her power and who to trust which takes extreme amounts of courage. That makes power, trust, and courage the three main themes of this book. The author shows Juliette's internal struggle involving