Mrs. Sen External Conflict

Alma feels afraid, trapped, and insecure about this unknown country, America, when she comes here for the first time. It all makes Alma dreadfully homesick for her friends, neighbors, and family in Mexico because of those bad conditions and the unfamiliar place. She does not know how to speak English; therefore, she has not known any neighbor to talk with. Also, the things do not occur like expectation. In fact, the life in the U.S. is worse than in Mexico. However, even if she knows that, she still makes up her minds to move here. Alma starts missing her former home in Mexico, for her and her husband lived there since they were born. When she stays home by herself, the feeling of missing is stronger than any other

Reason of concerns and writer escort was that Cindy R expressed that she felt unsure to drive in her personal vehicle and preferred a staff member from Spring City Clubhouse to do so.

She describes the immigrants feelings towards America as “beating their hearts out at your gates for a breath of understanding.” Arriving in America, she expects everything to finally fall in place and she believes that she will finally get to fulfill her dreams and forefathers dreams by living “in the golden land of opportunity.” In the beginning, her tone is eager and faithful because she was determined to show America what she was capable of doing and how strong she was as a newcomer.

Is it better to settle with what you already have and know or branch out and strive for comfort elsewhere? This is the ongoing debate between sisters, Dee (Wangero) and Maggie in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” and sisters Bharati and Mira in Bharati Mukherjee’s “Two Ways to Belong in America”. In “Everyday Use” Maggie is a soft spoken homebody who has never found interest in straying from her mother while Dee on the other hand has moved on in life and uses her past as an image to prove how far she has made it in life, she even changed her birth name to cut all ties with her past. In “Two Ways to Belong in America” Bharati and Mira are Indian immigrants who both came to America with intentions of keeping their Indian heritage, but over time Bharati faded from her culture while Mira kept true. Although Maggie and Mira decided to stick to their roots, Dee and Bharati chose to immerse themselves in a new culture.

She explains her thesis by stating “Others who write stories of migration often talk of arrival at a new place as a loss of communal memory and the erosion of an original culture. I want to talk of arrival as a gain,” (360). The key points of the text include Mukherjee describing her transition between Calcutta and the United States, and what it means to be and American and how culture influences that aspect. The information in the text is significant; the people of America are a part of a melting pot, sometimes it is hard for them to find the distinction between American culture and their own. The information in Mukherjee’s story is clear and specific, unbiased, and is relevant to the purpose of the story. I believe Mukherjee has achieved her purpose of informing her audience about cultural differences; she presents certain strengths and weaknesses within the text.

Culture affects people’s perspectives of the world and others through their upbringing and how, when, and where they were raised. In the essay, “An Indian Father’s Plea,” Robert Lake writes about how his Indian child’s traditional way of learning is different from those in western education systems and that he's not a “slow” learner but learns in a different way from his peers. In the personal essay, “Two Ways to Belong in America,” Bharati Mukherjee describes her differing views of living in America with her sister, despite both being raised in India. In the poem, “My Mother Pieced Quilts,” by Teresa Palomo Acosta, Teresa how this quilt that her mother made for her involves all these pieces of her past that are stitched together. In the

As Ashoke settled in the United States with his new wife, Ashima, as first-generation immigrants and started their own family, Ashoke insisted to her wife the life that America can offer to their children, from sufficient education and multiple possibility of a better future than a life in India. Ashoke’s principle towards life proves the conceptualized idea of America’s supremacy in different sociocultural aspects that again places the Asian Americans in the margin of the culture paradigm. Racism is another portion of the marginalization that is displayed in Nair’s film. A scene from the movie exhibits the perception of some Americans

But lack of cultural understanding by her parents was not just found in Cofer’s family. It is also seen in Kothari’s family. Kothari, like Cofer, was a second-generation immigrant, except her parents were from India, not Puerto Rico. When Kothari was a child, she wanted to have American food like the rest of her peers. So when she asks her mother to bring home tuna, she does not understand why it is so different from the tuna everyone has on their sandwich. What Kothari’s mother did not know, and what

That leads to exposure of new cultures because they have been under their parent’s guidance and were raised by their ways, but now they were on their own. The text says, “...two sisters from Calcutta, Mira and Bharati, who lived in the United States for some 35 years..” During those years, they were able to see the diversity of the United States. “When we left India, we were almost identical in appearance and attitude... We dressed alike, in saris; we expressed identical views on politics, social issues, love and marriage in the same Calcutta convent-school accent.”

In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, the protagonist of the story is a typical ‘tragic hero’. He has the obvious traits of a hero, and from the start of the play the audience is told of his great bravery and loyalty in battle. However, as the story progresses, Macbeth slowly descends into his own demise. He rises to absolute power as king of Scotland, and then loses everything he has. The reasons for Macbeth’s downfall can ultimately be attributed to the witches’ prophecy, to Lady Macbeth’s influence and to Macbeth’s own personal attributes, such as greed, ambition and lust for power.

Politics are a noticeably controversial and complex topic of discussion for the majority of the American people. The political opinions of the American people are ultimately developed by their collective culture, lifestyle and political ideology. The majority of the American people are undeniably influenced and informed, directly and indirectly, by multiple sources of media on a daily basis. In this day and age, technology has allowed national political news to spread throughout the country virtually immediately via the internet, television, and radio. Many people might believe that popular news companies share and release politically biased information to the public with intentions to directly persuade the citizen’s opinions. The politically shared values and opinions of the American citizens strongly influence the executive decisions made within the United States government. Although, people that share conservative values believe that most news companies have a liberal bias, on the controversy, most people that share liberal values believe that most news companies have a conservative bias. This being said, all media released to the public, inevitably shares some kind of political bias and opinion that contains qualities of an opposing party.

The Pearl, written by John Steinbeck perfectly encapsulates the stringent economic and social divide among the poor and the rich not only on the basis of wealth but also ethnicity and historical divide. This is highlighted by the fact that there was frustration among the people of the village due to their oppression at the hands of their European colonizers. The living conditions of the town were thus very poor. They lived in brush houses and wore ragged clothes, without proper housing or even sanitation. While the European descendants lived in stone houses, surrounded by walls, the Indians, who had been subjugated for over 400 years lived in grass shacks with muddy floors. The situation of the town could be subsequently

In Lucy, Jamaica Kincaid explores the disillusionment faced by the eponymous character upon immigrating to the United States. The novel's style of narration allows Lucy’s thoughts and emotions to remain hidden. Despite this intense privacy, Lucy's disillusionment is clear. She had hoped that moving around the globe would solve her problems but she still struggles with homesickness and her relationship with her mother. Her move is disappointing. The erasure poem And Coldest also engages disillusionment. The poem suggests the speaker has become disillusioned by observing the world, and indicates their plan to be “shut tight.” The poem inspired me to consider the causes of Lucy’s disillusionment, and her failure to address her own emotions. As a recent immigrant, the causes of Lucy’s disillusionment are somewhat obvious. More enigmatic is her self-avoidant, “shut tight” attitude. In this paper, I argue that Lucy’s disillusionment causes her to avoid the discomfort that comes with self-reflection.

This passage from “Fasting, Feasting” by Anita Desai contrasts American and Indian cultures. Desai does this by showing the effects of culture shock on Arun, an Indian foreign exchange student living in America. Indian culture raises young boys to learn and think; whereas America, Arun’s new home, emphasizes action over thought. Arun has a hard time adjusting to his new environment, and his rigidity affects his quality of life. Desai makes use of literary devices to reveal a lonesome boy in unfamiliar surroundings. This boy, because of his foreign values and culture, is uninclined to leave the comforts of certainty.

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.