Nature vs. Culture

Nature vs. Culture

By: Charlie Reed

Thesis

Stereotypes have impinged upon people through nature and culture, which are demonstrated to work in contrary, inverted, and complex ways in plays, poems, and short stories.

Quotes

“Besides - Torvaldt, with all his masculine pride-how painfully humiliating for him if he ever found out he was in debt to me” (Ibsen 794).

“Why cant you understand your place in your own home? Where’s your religion?” (Ibsen 840).

“They’ll do a favor if you ask them right…that makes problems, because to ask proper was an art that was lost to the Chippewas once the Catholics gained around,” (Erdrich 284).

“I run my fingers up the maps of those rivers of veins or I knock very gentle above their hearts or I make a circling motion on their stomachs, and it helps them. They feel much better.” (Erdrich 281).

“She wanted a little room for thinking: but she saw diapers streaming on the line, a doll slumped behind the door” (Dove 502).

The mother focuses on “a floating maple leaf” (Dove 502).

Conclusion

A Doll’s House

Love Medicine

Daystar

Play

Short Story

Poem

In literature, stereotypes between nature and culture can either go hand in hand or switch roles to create contrast in plays, poems, or short stories. For example, in “A Doll’s House,” Torvaldt and Nora’s roll switches from the stereotypical roll of the husband and wife in a family. While in “Love Medicine” and “Daystar” nature and culture work together. In “Love Medicine” nature and culture help Lipsha have faith in his power of touch, while in “Daystar” nature and culture help the mother have a time of freedom where she has not a worry in the world.

Louise’s Erdrich’s, “Love Medicine” represents a strong contrast between nature and culture. The culture aspect of this story comes from the setting. Taking place on a Native American Reservation sets the scene for a strong cultural divide among people, Marie and Nector. On this reservation, like most, culture, religion, and believe go hand in hand, which shapes their culture. Just from the title, the reader can make assumptions. The title, “Love Medicine” not only gives foreshadowing but also provides a key element to the nature of the story, which is the stereotype that comes along with living on a Native American Reservation. In this story, Lipsha has a magical touch that can cure love if it’s broken, an example of a stereotype that one associates with Native Americans.

The poem, “Daystar,” written by Rita Dove represents a relationship between a mother and her kids. The culture of the story is the mother’s inversion of nature. Similar to most mothers of young children, the only time they have any free time is when the kids are taking a nap. It is then when a mother has time to think and regress, in this poem, the mother observes nature, finding joy in it. Another big part of nature in this poem is the stereotype that a mother should always have maternal instincts, caring for her youth. When the mother is outside observing nature, she sees objects that resemble a free mind or spirit. This hour or so outside on her own is her time to shine; she can see the light in the darkness, making her a “Daystar,” when she’s not playing the role as a mother and wife.

A lot can be learned about a family by understanding the husband and wife relationship. In Henrik Ibsen’s, “A Doll’s House” the characters belief that a parent is obligated to be honest, caring, and upstanding. In this particular play, Nora represents the nature aspect, and how the nature of a woman is stereotypically one that is a good wife and a caring and loving mother. In Torvalds mind, it is he that should provide the family with wealth for he is the breadwinner and Nora is the caring mother. But after he reads the letter at the end of the play, this stereotype of a woman that the reader has seen throughout the story is completely ruined for him. The cultural reality in this play is that Nora, Torvalds wife is actually the real breadwinner for the family, earning and supporting them. Torvald does not like this because he feels he is losing control of his “doll.”