David Mura’s Fictive Fragments of a Father and Son focuses on Mura discovering his cultural identity through his father’s past lifestyle. As he analyzes his father’s past, he comes to realize his father stories are possibly fictional, but have an inner meaning regardless. Mura comprehends how his father’s stories focus on the idea of freedom and balancing dual cultures. While placed in camps at an adolescent age, Mura’s father had to learn various types of American ideals including cultural activities, celebrations, and traditions. One saying that always stuck with the father is a teacher stating, “After the war you will be free again and back in American society” (Mura 101). The instructor’s lessons mostly focused on what it takes to feel …show more content…
Many elements persuaded non-natives to gradually feel welcome, but it overall led for them to change their idea of what being part of America really symbolized. For instance, the father told Mura that he had played baseball in the camps since the very beginning. With baseball being originated from the United States, it immediately became stamped as an American sport because it highlights their strength, masculinity, and ideals of a modern society. By the camp offering a game such as baseball, it establishes the labels the camp wanted to implement into non-natives in hopes of them to feel more comfortable within society. Another example worth mentioning is participating in the city’s post-war celebrations. After the war ended, the father identifies how the community was celebrating the end of a war. The celebration involved confetti, firecrackers, men sweeping women off their feet, and lastly, music. Notably, the song emphasized in the celebration was called “Stars and Stripes Forever.” A high school band was playing this song loud and proud to demonstrate their patriotic dedication. The instrumental symbolizes the American flag and beliefs of the American traditions. After distinguishing how society celebrated their patriotic pride, this led to the father to come to the conclusion of what the teachers were discussing on how to represent an American and it was like to be free. Ever since being in the camps, the father felt conflicted on how to implement his Japanese culture along with his American culture. At the camp, he was taught American ideals to show his dedication towards their society. In the process, the father became conflicted on balancing two cultures and overall, led for his freedom to feel limited. Obtaining freedom signifies expressing oneself however they pleased. At the same time, the camp instructors
Traditions and old teachings are essential to Native American culture; however growing up in the modern west creates a distance and ignorance about one’s identity. In the beginning, the narrator is in the hospital while as his father lies on his death bed, when he than encounters fellow Native Americans. One of these men talks about an elderly Indian Scholar who paradoxically discussed identity, “She had taken nostalgia as her false idol-her thin blanket-and it was murdering her” (6). The nostalgia represents the old Native American ways. The woman can’t seem to let go of the past, which in turn creates confusion for the man to why she can’t let it go because she was lecturing “…separate indigenous literary identity which was ironic considering that she was speaking English in a room full of white professors”(6). The man’s ignorance with the elderly woman’s message creates a further cultural identity struggle. Once more in the hospital, the narrator talks to another Native American man who similarly feels a divide with his culture. “The Indian world is filled with charlatan, men and women who pretend…”
“If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons.” This quotation by James Arthur Baldwin helps to bring about one of the main points of his essay, “Notes of a Native Son.” Baldwin’s composition was published in 1955, and based mostly around the World War II era. This essay was written about a decade after his father’s death, and it reflected back on his relationship with his father. At points in the essay, Baldwin expressed hatred, love, contempt, and pride for his father, and Baldwin broke down this truly complex relationship in his analysis. In order to do this, he wrote the essay as if he were in the past, still with his father,
Rory Turner is Formerly Program Director for Folk and Traditional Arts and Program Initiative Specialist at the Maryland States Arts Concil. In Turner’s review “Bloodless Battles,” he iniciates the research with an ending of the American Civil War; “The American Civil War was fought between 1861 and 1865. Over 600,000 died in this multilevel conflict between the Northern states (the Union) and the southern states (the Confederacy)”. As the author explain much else in the United States, after a period of time when the war was over; each year there are many events all over the country, in memorial of The American Civil War and in continues to this day. Civil War reenactments are not just symbolic text that express culture meanings to analytically
In this same poem Suyemoto writes, “And conscienceless, wills not to understand/ That being born here constitutes a right,”1 referencing the two thirds of Japanese on the Pacific-coast that were natural born citizens. Even the cruel, inconsiderate neglect people showed while wondering through Toyo’s family’s home when they were trying to pack their important belonging for departure to a camp the next, demonstrates how little people thought of the Japanese at his point in time. Toyo Suyemoto’s poem “Guilt by Heredity” explains these blind discontent most Americans felt for Japanese during this time in American history, and is shows how little people, or the American government cared about or for these people during World War II.
American writer, Theodore Winthrop, in his narrative essay “Our March to Washington” recounts the time he was in a parade on his way off to fight in the civil war. In his essay, Winthrop hopes to vividly recreate the noises and scenes of the parade through rhetorical devices. He adopts a sentimental tone towards the event in order to show his readers how much the parade meant to him in new and difficult times.
Father and Son by Bernard McLaverty 'Father and Son' by Bernard McLaverty is a short story which is set in
Hundreds of bodies littered the ground. Sounds of explosions and endless gunfire filled the air. Soldiers, with their uniforms splashed in crimson, fought viciously and ruthlessly. Their main objective, which was to win the battle, took a backseat to their newfound desperation to stay alive. After all, war is not a game, especially one such as the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and left its survivors haunted by a multitude of atrocious events. Terry Erickson’s father and George Robinson, who were two fictional characters from the short stories “Stop the Sun” and “Dear America”, respectively, were veterans of the Vietnam War. The differences and similarities between Terry’s father and George Robinson are striking, and they merit rigorous scrutiny.
Every individual has traditions passed down from their ancestors. This is important because it influences how families share their historical background to preserve certain values to teach succeeding generation. N. Scott Momaday has Native American roots inspiring him to write about his indigenous history and Maxine Hong Kingston, a first-generation Chinese American who was inspired by the struggles of her emigrant family. Kingston and Momaday manipulate language by using, metaphors, similes, and a unique style of writing to reflect on oral traditions. The purpose of Kingston’s passage is to reflect upon her ancestor’s mistake to establish her values as an American
Throughout literature many pieces of work can be compared and contrasted to each other. In “Superman and Me,” Sherman Alexie discusses the challenges he faced as a young Indian adult, who found his passion of reading at an early age, living on the Spokane Indian Reservation. He challenged the stereotype of the young Indian students who were thought to be uneducated while living on a reservation. Likewise, in the excerpt from The Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez shares his similar experience of being a minority and trying to break stereotypes of appearing uneducated. He shares the details of his life growing up learning a different culture and the struggles he faced becoming assimilated into American culture. In these two specific pieces of literature discuss the importance of breaking stereotypes of social and educational American standards and have similar occupational goals; on the other hand the two authors share their different family relationships.
Reiterating the importance of literature, culture and fables in the modern generation, Darryl Babe Wilson’s “Diamond Island: Alcatraz” also demonstrates the large effect one’s family members and traditions have on oneself’s belief and thought. Amongst the multiple mentors found in one’s own family, the influence of a father is arguably one of the strongest. Correspondingly, my own father has had a strong impact on my daily life. Instilling qualities of not only appreciation but also perseverance, the life of my father guides not only my past and present, but would continue to guide my future.
Many people hail “The Star Spangled Banner” as the greatest piece of American music. The audiences of America’s national anthem seem, instinctively, eager to express their respect by embracing the notion to remove their hats and stand up. However, not many people ponder over the question of what “The Star Spangled Banner” truly means. What does it mean? Why does it deserve so much reverence and honor? What exceptional difference allows it to prevail over the masterpieces of prominent composers like Mozart and Beethoven? The answer is fairly simple. “The Star Spangled Banner” symbolizes America’s perseverance, its set of moral laws and ethics, and its history that constitutes what America truly means.
Ichiro Yamada’s refusal to serve in the U.S. Army presents the parental and cultural aspects that are influenced by the belief of a monoracial American identity. During the internment, the government administered a Loyalty Questionnaire to all Japanese internees. To Ichiro, this either determined his rejection or acceptance into American society. One major question was Question 27: “willing to serve whenever ordered” (10/9 Lecture). Another major question was Question 28: “swearing allegiance to the United States and forswearing allegiance to the Emperor of Japan” (10/9 Lecture). By refusing to serve in the army, American society regarded him as a disloyal American. However, in Mrs. Yamada’s eyes, his refusal affirms her pride in calling him “her son” (16). During this scene, free indirect discourse, or the “presenting of thoughts of a character as if it is from their POV via character’s ‘direct
The men had to carry an abundance of tangibles and intangibles but it the end the intangibles weighed more than the tangibles. The men carried their reputations put there by their fathers. Their fathers fought in World War Two. When the men’s fathers came back from war there were parades and homecoming parties.
Wright writes about the soldiers as persons that are very little culturally informed because of the parent(s) non-present upbringing.
The short story that will be discussed, evaluated, and analyzed in this paper is a very emotionally and morally challenging short story to read. Michael Meyer, author of the college text The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, states that the author of How to Tell a True War Story, Tim O’Brien, “was drafted into the Vietnam War and received a Purple Heart” (472). His experiences from the Vietnam War have stayed with him, and he writes about them in this short story. The purpose of this literary analysis is to critically analyze this short story by explaining O’Brien’s writing techniques, by discussing his intended message and how it is displayed, by providing my own reaction,