Culture Essay, Research Paper

Final DemoCulture is a very significant thing to people on Earth. In the history of the world there have been many different cultures. To many people keeping their culture unchanged is the most important thing to them, In the Canadian Dictionary it describes culture as the arts, beliefs, habits, institutions, and other human endeavors of a particular community, people, or nation. In the short story The Lottery the people had decided to try and keep their culture as similar as it was when the community had first started. This is decided even though the town s people all got together and killed their neighbors; it was a very important part of their heritage. Could you imagine getting together with family and friends and then ending up stoning them to death without a second thought? I know that I would never able to kill anyone by the use of stones. These are people who they grew up with. All because of what their tradition tells them to do they become inhuman and kill without even effecting their conscience. In this story it talks about the tradition of the black box. No one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box. To try and keep the black box is very important to the villagers because they would like to maintain as much of the same ritual as possible. Throughout the years the rituals of the lottery had been changed considerable from its original version in order to suit the population increase. The Lottery discusses how some places have already quit lotteries. Old Man Warner proclaims that there is nothing but trouble in that. Warner feels like keeping the old ways is very important to a community s culture. Without traditions the way that things should be would fall apart. Religion plays a very large part in how cultures are created. The Jewish people in the novel Night are selected because of their different beliefs and traditions. Being prejudice happens quite often because there are different types of people all around the world. Night is a very good example of how dissimilar cultures are treated unequally. Th novel Night describes what it was like for a Jewish person during the war. The Jews were forced to show that they were different by wearing the Star of David on their clothing. They were forced to go to concentration camps, where they had to fight for survival. They had tried to maintain their culture and even prayed to their God who they no longer even believed in. There were no longer any synagogues open. We gathered in private houses: the Germans were not to be provoked. This is what Elie Wiesel said when they were first introduced to the German troops in Sighet. The Germans were taking away their culture and their prayer by doing this. The Jewish people tried to do everything they could without infuriating the Germans, to keep their religion. The German people did not understand the Jewish culture therefore they were able to take it away from them without a second thought. Even in the concentration camps the Jewish people were able to say their prayers and keep as much tradition as possible within captivity. In Hamlet the part that stood out best for me was when Ophelia committed suicide. She was given a Christian burial. In the past part of culture was not to sin against the God and if you did you were not able to have a Christian Funeral. In the case of Ophelia she should not have been granted the right to a proper burial because to take your own life was a sin. Ophelia was given this right because of the fact she had gone insane.

While the King is praying Hamlet determines that it is not very fair to kill the King at this time. Hamlet does not find it fair because the believed that the spirit of the dead roams the earth of they did not confess their sins before dying. Claudius did not allow the King Hamlet to free his sins and therefore he is forced to live on the earth as a spirit forever. This is what their culture believed thus making it very important to confess your sins. I found it to be very difficult to find any culture in the story The Guest . My only thought was the fact that Daru had gone and fought in a war. War can be a very important issue in the world. There are many wars against people. People fight for their fight of freedom and freedom is very significant in order to keep their culture alive. There are many wars that try to take away peoples rights to their own way of living. Daru, the schoolmaster, is trying to get away from any sign of war because he does not feel that killing and taking away from people their rights is the correct thing to do. When the Arab is brought to Daru he doesn t know how to react. Daru refuses to bring the Arab to jail because he wants no part of anything that he feels is dishonest or disrespectful. Daru gives the Arab a chose of freedom of jail and the Arab decided to go to jail and face his punishment. The Story Cowboy from Holland is an example of someone going from one culture to another one. It isn t always easy and sometimes a person is discriminated against and other times they may fit right in. An example of how the Dutch Cowboy didn t fit in is the statement yesterday some boys born in Canada jeered at the Dutch immigrant and trampled his new seed bed. The fact that the bot was new and different from the Canadian boys gave them enough reason to pick on the Dutch boy. This situation happens in many places around the world for the reason that many people are prejudiced against different nations. At the end of the short story it explains that the native Canadian boys were teaching and immigrant the art of baseball, the secret of a robin s nest in an apple tree, the green mysteries of a swamp. In the end the Canadian boys ended up accepting the cowboys differences. I think that in the future we will all be equal, we will just have to take examples from children who seem to be a lot more open to new cultures and people. In my life I have been around many types of cultures and the people that go with them. I have found that in Alberta basically everybody looks alike and even acts alike but they are all different. Beliefs are very essential to a person s culture and that us where religion comes in. Culture has always been a part of life and I imagine that it always will be.