Tradition: Lost and Kept
Each culture in the world follows its own customs and traditions. These traditions, however, are sometimes broken to allow a compromise in their society, or are still kept throughout the culture's existence. In the story The Rain Came, an African tribe faces a harsh and desolate time because their tribe is experiencing a severe drought and as a result the livestock is dying from dehydration, the crops are drying out, and the tribe's Chief is called upon to remedy the situation. Following their tribe's tradition on asking the gods for assistance, the Chief discovered the only way to eliminate the drought is by sacrificing his daughter in a traditional ritual. The events that follow will show how the tribe's customs will be kept and lost.
Tradition is shown in many parts of the story. The first example of tradition is evident in the scene where the Chief speaks to the ancestors to change the sacrifice; he loves his only daughter dearly and does not wish her to die. Unfortunately, he could not abandon his position as Chief and let the people die from the drought either. In the tribe, it was customary for the Chief to have several wives and children. The Chief married five wives and the fifth one brought him a daughter. Another tradition that was shown in the story was the explanation of how Oganda (the chief's only daughter) received her name. Her name meant "beans" because her skin was smooth, very much like the skins of beans. A last example of tradition is the sacrificing of Oganda. She is scheduled to be sacrificed to a lake monster in order for the tribal villages to receive precipitation and water. In modern days, we would check the local satellite forecast for the area and determine when to conserve water during a drought. However, in this story, tradition must be followed to allow the people to live and thrive, or does it?
Revealing the parts of the story where tradition is kept is important in order to compare with the part where tradition is lost and compromised. The
Chief keeps tradition when he arranges a meeting with all the family members except Oganda to discuss her sacrifice to better the chances of survival for everyone else. Oganda believes that her family is discussing her marriage and her morale and hopes increase until her family informs her of the situation. To the villagers, it was a great honor to let a woman's daughter to die for her country. To the Chief, it was a great and sad loss for his only daughter would
daughter’s last request was for him to forgive the offender who killed her which he does.
country all at once, but Knute, you did it. You died one of our national heroes.
good crops. Therefore every year they held a lottery to find out who the sacrifice would
Charles W. Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition is full of strong, solid men that overcome the novel’s narrative focus. It is easy to claim someone like the educated Dr. Miller or the brave Josh Green as the hero of the story, but a more in-depth look places the steady Janet Miller as the driving force of the progressive ideas Chesnutt hopes to impart. Janet Miller, a woman whose mixed ethnicity symbolizes the hope for racial coexistence, and whose compassion becomes the deciding factor in whether to save the Carteret’s child, is the hero of The Marrow of Tradition.
Some of the direct effects of the droughts were that many of the farmers’ crops were damaged by deficient rainfall, high temperatures, and high winds, as well as insect infestations and dust storms that accompanied these conditions. What essentially happened was that the soil lacked the stronger root system of grass as an anchor, so the winds easily picked up the loose topsoil and swirled it into dense dust clouds, called “black blizzards.” The constant dry weather caused crops to fail, leaving the plowed fields exposed to wind erosion. The effects of the drought happened so rapidly and progressively over time that there was very little preparation and planning the farmers could do before having to abandon their homes.
As the United States developed and grew, upward mobility was central to the American dream. It was the unstated promise that no matter where you started, you had the chance to grow and proceed beyond your initial starting point. In the years following the Civil War, the promise began to fade. People of all races strived to gain the representation, acknowledgement and place in this society. To their great devastation, this hope quickly dwindled. Social rules were set out by the white folk, and nobody could rise above their social standing unless they were seen fit to be part of the white race. The social group to be impacted the most by this “social rule” was the African Americans. Black folk and those who were sympathetic to the idea of equal rights to blacks were targeted by the Ku Klux Klan. (Burton, 1998) The turning point in North Carolina politics was the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898. It was a very bold and outrageous statement from the white supremacists to the black folk. The Democratic white supremacists illegally seized power from the local government and destroyed the neighborhood by driving out the African Americans and turning it from a black-majority to a white-majority city. (Class Discussion 10/3/13) This event developed the idea that even though an African American could climb a ladder to becoming somebody in his or her city, he or she will never become completely autonomous in this nation. Charles W. Chesnutt discusses the issue of social mobility in his novel The Marrow of Tradition. Olivia Carteret, the wife of a white supremacist is also a half-sister to a Creole woman, Janet Miller. As the plot develops, we are able to see how the social standing of each woman impacts her everyday life, and how each woman is ...
A tradition is a set of customs and beliefs that is passed down from generation to generation that is embedded in the culture of a society. Many people take a tradition as something that has “always been” and tend to not question why such traditions have been put in place, or even if such traditions are moral. Many times people do not take the time to really evaluate their reasoning for following such beliefs, or take the time to decide if their reasoning is even valid. The Muay Thai fighting culture of Thailand is one in which the morality of its “traditions” should be brought into question. Women fighters who participate in the culture of Muay Thai are seen as second-class when compared to the male fighters who participate.
Throughout time the local tribe built and developed a home for themselves and by 1975 crops were developed. The constant issue to survive from passing diseased became in issue.
The story is the most powerful and most compelling form of human expression in Leslie Marmon Silko's novel Ceremony. Stories reside within every part of every thing; they are essentially organic. Stories are embedded with the potential to express the sublime strength of humanity as well as the dark heart and hunger for self destruction. The process of creating and interpreting stories is an ancient, ongoing, arduous, entangled, but ultimately rewarding experience. As Tayo begins to unravel his own troubled story and is led and is led toward this discovery, the reader is also encouraged on a more expansive level to undertake a similar interpretive journey. Each story is inextricably bound to a virtually endless narrative chain. While reaching an epiphanal moment, a moment of complete clarity, l is by no means guaranteed, by presenting Tayo as an example, Silko at least suggests there is fundamental worth in pursuing and creating stories.
died without the men. Showing how the men were viewed as leaders and without them the tribe would
“I will bury him myself./If I die for doing that, good:/I will stay with him, brother;/and my crime will be devotion.”
Before taking this class, I often thought that our advanced society was the standard in which to measure all other societies from, but after reviewing the material in this course, it is impossible to make such a comparison. Many of the people in a culture similar to the U.S. would probably find most of the cultures we have studied to be “slow”, strange, or undesirable. In fact, it seems that many of the societies actually prefer to live the way they do and accept it as normal. “Normal” is a relative term, and it is difficult to establish evidence to label a culture or its characteristics abnormal. What may seem to work here often would be disastrous to other cultures.
It was Christmas Eve. I sat, huddled in a ball, behind the armchair in my living room. I was trying to be as still and patient as I could be. I remember moments where I held my breath thinking if she heard me breathe, she would leave and I would never get a chance to see her. I could feel myself drifting off to sleep, but I tried to resist. All I wanted was to see her just once. Usually, I would be scared at the thought of a witch, but she was different. She was a magical witch who flew on a broom from house top to house top, visiting children and filling their shoes with candy and chocolates. Sure enough, I awoke the next morning to find myself still huddled in the same ball; I had fallen asleep before La Befana arrived. As I stood up yawning, I took a big stretch and noticed my Christmas shoes lying by my feet full of goodies.
“Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay”. This powerful quote by philosophical writer, Jiddu Krishnamurti, cultivates what the powerful truth which lies in the speculative fiction short story, “The Lottery”. Shirley Jackson published “The Lottery” in 1948. The time period plays an essential role in understanding the implication of this story. The 1940s is in the prime of societies fight to break immoral traditions. Shirley Jackson herself found it difficult to get much notoriety for her work in a traditionally male literary elite. Tradition is a powerful element, it can influence society for better and for worse. The power of tradition plays an important role in the social judgment of the community in “The Lottery”. Social judgment is negatively impacted by the fear of breaking tradition. Tradition can deteriorate good moral sense over time. Tradition tends to manipulate younger generation’s judgment. “The Lottery” illustrates how ignorance to tradition can negatively manipulate social judgment.
known. The only thing that could compare to his love for his family, was his love for his country.