Analysis Of Santha Rama's Essay 'By Any Other Name'

Culture builds up and shapes how people view the world and the people in it. It determines how we judge and view the way others act, look, and even how they think. In the texts “Where worlds collide”, “An Indian Father’s Plea”, and “Two Kinds”, it is shown that a person’s views of others and the world are solely determined by their culture.

In Santha Rama Rau’s story, “By Any Other Name,” she describes her experiences at the Anglo-Indian school to which she and her sister, Premila, are sent when Premila is eight and Santha is five and a half. Because the girls have been home schooled by their mother up to this point they find the transition to their new school strange and disconnecting. Santha’s sister, Premila, is initially willing to try and adapt to the culture and customs of her new environment; however, when a teacher is openly racist, Premila displays an impressive strength of character.

Take a moment to think about the following question: what is culture? Culture is everything a person does, believes in, creates, came from, and has done. It is also so much more than this simple list, but this is a good idea of what it generally is. Culture affects a lot of things as well. It can affect what you do, how you do certain things, and how you see things comparison to others. Culture is a major factor in how people perceive the world and those around them. Everybody sees the world differently through their cultural glasses. Some people see things as foreign and confusing, while others see the same things as daily life. The idea of different cultural viewpoints is shown in many articles throughout the years. Each of these stories

Culture incorporates many different aspects of life such as religion, food, language, ethnicity, and many more. All of these aspects influence the way a person lives and acts. Although culture provides a positive influence by bestowing self worth, it could also negatively affect someone’s life. Culture affects a person in many ways by creating internal and external conflict, which influences the way others view them and therefore affects their actions and how they feel about themselves.

Have you thought of someone’s culture as weird? Have you thought that you are completely different from them? If so, what prompts us to make that assumption. Culture is a very good reason for this. So, to what extent does one’s culture inform the way one views others and the world? Culture informs a person on the way others are and the world.

Culture shapes our image of people, food, the way we dress, and even our opinion on certain topics whether political or social. Important Information. In the text such as in “An Indian Father’s Plea”, “Everyday Use”, and Two Kinds, culture impacts the way one’s outlook is on the world around them.

Culture is a strong determinant of people's views of the very nature and meaning of

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.

Culture is very important to many individuals in this world. It plays key parts in a vast amount of people’s lives. While some may follow everything to do with their culture, your culture doesn’t have to affect your life. You can still choose to have your own personal views, or to follow your accustomed culture. People will all view everything differently depending on who they are, what cultural background they have, and what scenario they’re in.

Santha not knowing her name also created some external conflict between her and the British students. The British students laughed at Santha for not knowing her name. This creates mental tension between them because Santha now thinks that the British students are just mean and simple-minded and in return the British students think that Santa is just a dumb Indian. Santha gets called a bad sport for not knowing how to play tag. Having a lack of knowledge of how a culture functions and experiencing it is certainly going to have bad results. Santha is only creating further distance from her and the British students. Having the sisters experience a different culture without have prior knowledge about it can leave them shaken and them forming personal opinions about

“Culture is sometimes described as a lens through which we view the world, meaning that one’s culture influences their perceptions and interactions in everyday life” (Davis, 2006). Every culture has different beliefs and customs

An individual's surroundings affects their daily interactions, even though it could be blinded by their own beliefs. Using personal experience, readings, and texts supports the claim that culture has a big impact on how the world is perceived through different lens. Within these pieces of evidence, ethnicity and tradition affects their destinations and method living. In “An Indian’s Father’s Plea” by Robert Lake there are several examples of how you grow up effects how you see the world.

In the story By any other name by Santha Rama Rau, Santha and her sister, Premila, move to a different school that changes them in ways that affect their culture. In the beginning, the headmistress says, “Suppose we give you pretty English names (35).” This creates the beginning of how the American culture is affecting Santha and Premila by changing their Indian names because it is too hard for everyone else to pronounce. The sisters are also starting to question their lunch: “Premila and I were the only ones who had Indian food (37).” This explains how their culture is conflicting with everyone else’s and how they are viewing themselves as different. Throughout these two quotes, it shows how both cultures, people from the school and Santha and Premila’s, are conflicting and changing one another while they are viewing each other differently.

A person’s heritage and cultural identity may be lost when moving to a new country where the culture is different and other cultures are not easily accepted. In the short story “Hindus”, Bharati Mukherjee uses setting, characters and the plot to discuss what it is like to lose your cultural identity while being a visible minority in America. Mukherjee uses the plot to describe the events that take place in the main characters life that lead her to realize how different the culture and life is in the America’s. She also uses the characters as a way of demonstrating how moving away from one’s culture and heritage can change a person’s perspective and ways of thinking. Mukerjee also uses setting in her story to identity the physical differences in culture between living in India and America. Alike the setting and characters, the plot helps describe the loss of culture with a sequence of events.

In Mira Nair’s film, The Namesake, the disparate cultures of India and America affirms to the binary paradigm of “the one” and “the other”, manifesting the dominance of one from the other and its impact to influence and cause cultural and identity issues. The collision of the two cultures forms a process of trying to construct an identity and a destruction of an ethnic identity, with different factors to consider such as space and other sociocultural codes. This film about the Indian American also shows the concept of model-minority image, standards and expectations imposed to Asian Americans. The Namesake embodies the cultural and identity issues of an Asian American, particularly the Indian Americans, exemplifying the experiences of the