Culture and Identity

Introduction

In today's modern world the significance of cultural and traditional values has gained more importance than ever. Now, the world has become a global village. Therefore, the need to retain and promote culture and tradition has augmented as well. The cultural and traditional values of a society give it an identity of its own. In past, we have observed that societies who haven't protected and extended their culture and tradition have disappeared in time. Culture is the set of all forms, models or patterns, explicit or implicit, through which a society governs the behavior of individuals within it. As such it includes customs, practices, codes, standards and rules of the manner, dress, religion, rituals, and norms of behavior and belief systems. From another point of view we can say that culture is all the information and skills that humans possess. (George, Pp. 33-44) The concept of culture is fundamental to the disciplines that are responsible for the study of society, especially anthropology and sociology. (George, Pp. 33-44).

Thesis Statement

The essay discusses the subject of cultural identity in the two short stories titled “We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?” by Achy Obejas Pages and “Clothes” by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. The underlying theme in both short stories is culture and identity and how it affects the people's perception.

Discussion

Divakaruni in her short store “Clothes” wrote about Sumita, a young Indian woman, and her cultural absorption of America that is represented by her attire and color selection for all her cloths. The conventional dress for an Indian woman is a Sar'i (also Sarre) and apart from sari, Indian women like to select different cloths which serve different purposes at multitude of traditions events. Another important aspect of her attire is that it ...