Between Traditions And Modernity By Neil Gaiman

Religion plays an important role in the narrative “The Sovereignty and Goodness of God” by Mary Rowlandson. The story is about a woman during the 1600’s. She is captured by Native Americans and separated from her family. The natives were upset that the immigrants were taking over their lands, so they burned downed their houses and kept the people captive. Mary uses a bible and her faith in God to help her get through the pain and separation.

One of the most outstanding characteristics of humans is that we have a moral conscience- the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, as well as understand the consequences of actions beforehand. Nonetheless, religion remains important to society because it helps to refine and provide a deeper understanding of humans’ moral responsibility. There are instances where either people ignore religious practices in favor of reason and logic or follow only religious teachings that suit a particular situation. Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a novella that typifies the failure of religion to unify people and provide a common course for understanding life. The story talks about Santiago’s fight against fate and the probability of escaping death that is foretold beforehand. The priest symbolizes religion in the novella and readers observe that his actions are similar to those of ordinary people. Ordinarily, we expect the priest to uphold religious practices and bring people together when society is divided on an issue.

Gaiman further takes advantage of the power he has due to his status as a great

The relationship between the individual and society is not just something found throughout human history, but also within the pages of a literature classic. From the first days of settlement in America, to racial tensions and slavery, to the development of capitalism, there has always been a relationship between the individual and society that is reflected in the written pieces of each time, revealing the connection between oneself and the collective spanning across the centuries. ‘The Scarlet Letter’, written in a Puritan world, and ‘Bartleby, The Scrivener’, written in capitalist America, are two key examples of literature that expose, detail and discuss the relationship between society and the individual in American history.

While outdated traditions obtain the ability to negatively impact the relationships between characters, they are also capable of creating internal conflicts within a character. In both texts, readers witness the effect traditions have on one’s morality, mental mind, and sense of identity. The occurrence of atrocious, old traditions plays a significant role in corrupting one’s morals, inducing conflict with a character’s past values. This is clearly exhibited when “Mrs. Delacroix selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands” (51). The ritual itself of hurling stones at another human is a demoralizing act that should not be justified by society, and reveals her iniquitous and immoral traits as she lacks awareness of her dehumanizing actions amidst participating in the ceremony. Mrs. Delacroix picks a colossal stone amongst a variety of possible sizes, demonstrating her loss of morals and redefined focus on the power she obtains from this abhorrent tradition. Moreover, traditions from the past are

The author’s theory about the peoples’ belief in divine intervention is that the poorest existence is attributed to God’s will, but as their materilistic life and styke get better, God descends the scale of responsibility at a consumerate speed.

In Santa Biblia: The Bible Through Hispanic Eyes, Justo L. Gonzalez explains that the meaning of “Hispanic eyes” is viewpoint of those who have claimed Hispanic identity and have read Scriptures to the commitment of the Latino struggle for freedom. The author is trying to communicate the new meaning through biblical texts that are read from a different perspective as well as showing the readers that embracing different theological viewpoints is necessary and shows how they function in interpreting the Bible. Gonzalez goes about making this argument through the five perspectives, Marginality, Poverty, Mestizaje and Mulatez, Exiles and Aliens, and finally Solidarity. Each perspective talks about how the Latinos apply them to both their life situations and when reading the Bible.

The play illustrated by Adu-Gyamfi & Schmidt (2011), “Everyman” written by an anonymous writer late in the fifteenth-century (p. 265-287), interconnects religious allegories with worldly moral lessons on several main reasons that good deeds and works are required and needed, but they do not save humanity from spiritual death. The play conveys a story about Everyman’s (representing human individuals) natural life journey to death. The morality of the play helps the audience appreciate the history of Christianity. The focal point throughout the play is about humanities, life plan and a journey that requires every man to construct an unworldly firm foundation built up strong to help overcome any uprooting storm within a lifetime. Its personification comes in the form of the characters Everyman, Goods, and Goods Deeds, who embodied the concept of teaching lessons to humanity of the significance of living a Christ-centered life and learning to allow the heart restored and guided by God to help aid good judgement (Adu-Gyamfi & Schmidt, 2011). Thomas F. Van Laan (1963) describes Everyman’s play, “The human action and its allegorical significance together form a distinct structural pattern which not only imposes discipline but also contributes its own intrinsic meaning”. From the start of the first phase 5-6, the first point of view of the play engages, “…That of our lives and ending* shows / How transitory we be all day.*…” (Adu-Gyamfi & Schmidt, 2011). The play displays how

Humans instinctively seek pleasure and ease by settling into a formation of habits that co-align with their lifestyle and culture. This process of entering a routine, based on one lifestyle, solidifies the ideology that one’s destiny is determined by one’s status in the social hierarchy, such as what one individual’s occupation is. In the book The Poisonwood Bible, Kingsolver utilizes dynamic characterization and juxtaposition to reveal the lifestyle transformation and fresh insight of the significance of human existence, that is prompted due to an abandonment of previous habits and social hierarchies that once provided comfort.

In the novel Guns Germs and Steel, an American biologist named Jared Diamond is attempting to answer a question from a New Guinean politician named Yali, in July 1972. Yali asked him: (1)“Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people hat little cargo of our own?” For over thirty years, Diamond was investigating our inferred history for clues, to answer Yali’s question. He published a scientific opinion that explains how geography is to blame for the dispersal of power, as few societies and civilizations inhabiting in the Middle East had access to resources, such as the seeds of highly nutritious crops alike wheat and barley, and useful livestock such as cow and sheep, which others

To live a life of this, a life of complete and utter submission, people must accept and romanticize ideals. They yield to authority and adopt ways of thinking that condemn them to lives of obedience. They lose all individuality, becoming merely carbon copies of each citizen of this community.

While I was there, I saw firsthand the importance of cultural legacy and the effect it had on the communication between groups of different cultural legacies: Haitian and American.  Having the cultural legacy of a native American (not referring to ethnicity), I wore a bracelet on my ankle. In Haiti, the primary cultural legacy of Haitians assumes that anklet-bracelets is a symbol for prostitution. Not only does Haiti’s cultural legacy induce the tradition of this assumption, it also induces the assumption that prostitution is an act of Satan. Further into the story, I walked past a young orphan-girl living at the orphanage I was staying at. As I walked past her, she stopped me in my tracts and yelled at me, “Satan!”.  The communication barrier between me and the young girl, resulted in miscommunication. This is another example of how interaction between different cultural legacies results in a communication barrier.  These examples of cultural legacy, are only but a few examples from my trip to Haiti. Because I experienced the interaction between myself and people of different cultural legacies, I agree with Gladwell’s theory that cultural legacies are important and effective in acquiring

People come to America in order to seek the freedom to life, speech, education, jobs, and free will. Back in Guatemala, Estevan and Esperanza’s daughter Ismene was “taken in a raid on their neighborhood”(183). This unjust treatment causes Estevan and Esperanza to strengthen their will to escape out of the country. So after many difficulties, they are able to escape out of Guatemala and enter America. However, soon after the entrance into America, they face the American discriminated society.. The Americans negative attitude towards Indians causes them to live in fear and discomfort everyday. But, even after all those hardships, they are still willing to stay in America. Their will to remain in America is so strong that they “sacrifice their

In the novel, The Book of Unknown Americans, Chirstina Heriauvez uses the characterization of Alma to depict an immigrant's´ journey in America to unravel the truth about the dark side of assimilating. The novels demonstrates that immigrants´ are filled with hope at the prospect of starting someplace new which often blinds them to believing that their new place will be better than their current situation. It can easily be impacted by racism, intolerance and the mistreatment of others.

Finally, those who adhere to the Reformed tradition have enthusiastically promoted a vision of the transformation of culture. According to this viewpoint, the various cultural and social structures in this life can be renewed in Christ. No aspect of reality is alien