Culture can be reflected and represented through people's traditions, beliefs, values and religions. A dominant culture is when the majority of people in one area such as a country, a city or an island follows the same culture. For the minority group, they need to think if they should accept or reject the dominant culture. Prior to reading Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones, I did not realize that dominant culture could impact people and society in a negative way. However, after seeing majority of white people leave the island, the society system on the island was smashed down. I realized that literature can teach us to reject dominant culture.
The author wanted to teach us to reject dominant culture. It can be proved when all the white people left …show more content…
In the story, Matilda’s father went to Australia to work, “ The white men wore mustaches, sunglasses, and shorts and socks. My father was trying to be like them. But it was when I saw him smile a sly smile, a white man’s smile. I can’t help with what I saw. I saw my father sliding away from us”( Jones 150). Matilda’s father tried so hard to be like white but he still could not fit in. And he will never be part of them. It totally changed him to another person whose daughter do not even know. In I’m a banana and proud of written by Wayson Choy, he described how people were affected by the dominant culture:
This was true. Chinatown’s younger brains, like everyone else’s of whatever race, were being colonized by ‘white bread’ U.S. television programs. We began to feel Chinese home life was inferior. We co-operated with English-language magazines that showed us how to act and what to buy. Seductive Hollywood movies made some of us secretly weep that we did not have movie star faces. American music made Chinese music sound like noise.(Choy …show more content…
Lloyd Jones shows how cruel the people could be without humanity so that it reflects how significant the humanity is. In Mister Pip, the redskins back to the island again and try to find Mr. Pip:
Between them was the rambo. They must have untied his hands, because he was dragging the limp body of Mr. Watts towards the pigs. We averted our eyes for the next bit. But some of us were too slow to avoid seeing the flash of the machete as it was raised. They chopped Mr. Watts up and threw him in pieces to the pigs.(Jones
The author wanted to teach us to reject dominant culture. It can be proved when all the white people left …show more content…
In the story, Matilda’s father went to Australia to work, “ The white men wore mustaches, sunglasses, and shorts and socks. My father was trying to be like them. But it was when I saw him smile a sly smile, a white man’s smile. I can’t help with what I saw. I saw my father sliding away from us”( Jones 150). Matilda’s father tried so hard to be like white but he still could not fit in. And he will never be part of them. It totally changed him to another person whose daughter do not even know. In I’m a banana and proud of written by Wayson Choy, he described how people were affected by the dominant culture:
This was true. Chinatown’s younger brains, like everyone else’s of whatever race, were being colonized by ‘white bread’ U.S. television programs. We began to feel Chinese home life was inferior. We co-operated with English-language magazines that showed us how to act and what to buy. Seductive Hollywood movies made some of us secretly weep that we did not have movie star faces. American music made Chinese music sound like noise.(Choy …show more content…
Lloyd Jones shows how cruel the people could be without humanity so that it reflects how significant the humanity is. In Mister Pip, the redskins back to the island again and try to find Mr. Pip:
Between them was the rambo. They must have untied his hands, because he was dragging the limp body of Mr. Watts towards the pigs. We averted our eyes for the next bit. But some of us were too slow to avoid seeing the flash of the machete as it was raised. They chopped Mr. Watts up and threw him in pieces to the pigs.(Jones