Culture and identity shapes and molds society as we know it today. Culture and Identity includes social class, generation, religion and nationality. It also gives us an understanding of how other races and organization work. The best way to fully understand one’s culture and identity is to not judge their ways of doing something or how they handle a certain situation. With this being said, there are many different things we can learn from culture and identity, it opens our mind to new possibilities and opportunities. Our world is a melting pot for different cultures and identities making it unique.
When it comes to culture and identity in the readings we have read, we can see that the identity and race have played a major role in the involvement of the stories. In Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” we can see that Ruth Younger was the typical women of the 1960s. She cooked, cleaned and basically took care of the family. You could even further the point by the mother of Walter Lee, Lena Younger. She too was the true definition mother that has done everything for her family. This style of tradition doesn’t just subside in the women but it also is present in the males of the play as well.
Throughout the play we can tell that Walter Lee wants to do everything possible to provide for his family. He even goes as far as trying to invest in a get rich quick scam. Walter Lee may not be able to hide the fact that they are struggling from his wife, mother, and Bennie but he tries his best to cover this condition with his son Travis. There was a certain scene in the play that puts the idea in perspective. Walter Lee believes that Travis is the future of the younger, so like good parents he wants only the best for his child.
In act 1 since 1 line 59 Walter says, “In fact, here’s another fifty cents… Buy yourself some fruit today – or take a taxicab to school or something! ” In this scene Travis ask his mother for fifty cents for school, during her rejection of the money Walter walks back in the house and over hears the conversation. With a stagnant look on his face Walter question her decision. In a way of teasing his wife Walter gives Travis the money he wanted for school and also throws in an extra fifty cents to make matters worse.
Ironically, Walter Lee would soon need money to get to work. Besides that, we can see that Walter is imposing his own tradition on Travis in a way, he makes it seem that money is always needed and that the only way to happiness is through money. One character that stood out the most to me in this story when it comes to identity is Beneatha Younger. Beneatha in a way was the character that tried to better herself even with the situation presented. Another thing that makes her different is that she isn’t your average women of the 1960s.
She is always challenging herself to learn something new but her primary goal is to be a doctor. A certain scene with momma (Lena), Ruth and Beneatha shows how truly stuck in tradition momma and Ruth are. Beneatha says “Get over it? What are you talking about, Ruth? Listen, I’m going to be a doctor. I’m not worried about who l’m going to marry, yet if I ever get married. ” After Beneatha said this Mama and Ruth seemed shocked that she was say something like that. Here we can see that this idea of not getting married is completely foreign to them.
A boat load of culture and identity is present in this scene we can see how concerned this statement made them because black women during this time hand somewhat structured: get married, have kids and take care of the house. One of the most significant scenes in the play retaining African cultures was when Bennie (Beneatha) said she didn’t believe in god. In the play she says “I’m just tired of hearing about God all the time. What has He got to do with anything? I’m not going to be immoral or commit crimes because I don’t believe. I don’t even think about that.
I just get so tired of Him getting the credit for things the human race achieves through its own effort. Now, there simply is no God. There’s only man. And it’s he who makes miracles. ” When I first read this I felt as if the character of Beneatha became twisted in away. Culturally, when you think of the religion of a black family during this time, you think of Christian goers who spend most of their Sundays in church praising the almighty. So to see Bennie say something like that in the manner she said it in put Lena in disbelief. She even went as far as saying that Big Walter (Bennie and Walter Jr.
Father) and herself raised them to believe in God and that they made sure they were at every Sunday service. This was an established identify during this time, it being that all blacks believed in God. More evidence to back up the fact that Mama (Lena) sickened by the statement of her daughter, Beneatha, was her response to it. Mama struck Beneatha across the face and told her to say “You say after me, in my mother’s house there is still God. (There is a long pause and Beneatha stares at the floor wordlessly. Mama repeats the phrase with precision and cool emotion. ) In my mother’s house there is still God”.
We can see that Mama still forces her cultural beliefs on Bennie even though she claims she’s a non-believer. Gender roles, traditions and religion doesn’t stop in this play we can also see it in a short story called Everyday Use by Alice Walker. This story basically tells of a mother on the porch waiting to be reunited with her eldest daughter, Dee. In the story, there are no signs of a father so you have to assume that the mother, narrator, raised the girls most of their lives. As soon as Dee returns Mama and Maggie, youngest daughter, notice a change in her right away.
She was very well dressed and came with a certain surprise, an Arab guy named Hakim-a-barber. In a way I see how Dee/Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo and Beneatha from “A Raisin in the Sun” are similar. Both characters try to force education on their families, feeling as if they know more because they went to school. The thing with Dee that has drawn interest to me is that she that she feels like she subjugated by her people because of her name, ergo her changing it to Wangero. In a scene Wangero tells Mama of this by saying, “I. couldn’t bear it any longer being named after people who oppress me. Wangero feels as if she was given a slave name and they only way to solve the problem was by changing it. One thing I found that had showed culture in way was the scene where all the characters where eating expect Asalamalakim. Alsalamalakim says he doesn’t eat collard green and claimed that pork was unclean. On the other hand we can see Wangero stuffing her face with chitlins, collard greens, and corn bread. Many cultural differences are present in this scene, the consumption of these kinds of food have come from the African descent.
It’s not hard to see that the conventional education of Wangero has split her from her family making her character come off as mean. Besides that you can see that Wangero main goal is only to restore the heritage and cultural she felt that her family has lost and she is only trying to convince Maggie and mama to see things from her perspective. Lastly, we have the poem “A Poem for Myself” by Etheridge Knight. The first thing I noticed when reading this poem was the syntax. The poem is arranged in patterns of musical blues and even has a certain rhyme scheme behind.
Etheridge Knight often repeats himself to emphasis a point he is trying to make. Knights tell of his life and how hard it was growing up in Mississippi. If you consider the time period and location, we can infer that every day of Knight’s life wasn’t just a walk in the park. For example one line says, “Walked barefooted thru the mud. ” This tells that he comes from a poor family. We can link these struggles to those of the Younger family in “A raisin in the Sun” and the struggles of Wangero and Maggie of not having a father figure in “Everyday use”.
One line that stood out to me the most by knight was, “I’m still the same old black with the same old blues”. Etheridge knight express his feeling of no change to the African American culture. He feels as our culture and identity is to be miserable or having to always deal with hard times. Another thing that caught my eye was the line “Said I done strolled all those funky avenues”. Before this knights was telling all of the place he has been which include New York City, Detroit and Chicago. Even though he has been to all these place up north he still feel as if he was treated the same, a black boy from Mississippi.
Etheridge Knight leaves us with a sense of hopelessness for the African American community. He makes it seems as if the cycle of chaos will continue with no hope of ending. All in all, these selections have proven to be filled with great example of culture and identity. We could find many different situations presented and most importantly how they were handled. The reading chosen mainly focused more on the African American side of culture and identity. One of the many similarities that was given throughout the three readings was the time period.
This factor made it particular hard on people of the African race considering the racism that was happening at the moment. Disregarding the endings every reading gave its own way of presenting culture but all of them ended up with the same idea. The things that makes culture and identity so extraordinary is that it’s always changing, therefore one will having something new to look forward to. At the end of the day culture and identity is what gives a certain race or religion its distinctive characteristics.
