Cultural Perspective In Alice Walker's By Another Name, By Santha Rama

Everyone is affected by culture throughout their life, but not everyone stops to thinks about the negative affects culture can have on a person. Cultural perspective is the outlook a person has on the world, based on the culture they come from. A person is going to believe that the way they do something is the right way, but is there really a right way? Each culture is going to be different, and so will each person’s cultural perspective. Cultural perspective can cause negative opinions and reactions to elements beyond their culture

A simple cultural comparison is a white person and a person of color, but apart from that, there’s also the fact that people come from different countries. People from other countries will have a difference in culture, because traditions and customs are completely different. Looking at the memoir “By Another Name” by Santha Rama, there are two Indian girls, and the headmistress of their Anglo-Indian day school is a white woman who came from Britain. According to the third paragraph of this memoir, “The
For example, look at Dee (Wangero) in Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use”. Dee focuses on what she inherits from culture, but not the sentimental values something may have, or the traditions and customs of culture. In paragraph 47, Dee says, “‘This churn top is what I need…”, then she states, “‘And I want the dasher, too’” in paragraph 49, and in paragraph 56, “‘Mama… Can I have these old quilts?”. Finally, in paragraph 68,” But they’re priceless!”. It can be seen that Dee cared about what she could receive from her culture, but not that it actually meant something to her. Despite Dee not truly caring about her culture, it still affected her life, and the way she saw the world. Although she saw the items more as something to collect, her culture still made her want something, and think about them a certain