The Power of One by Ernest Hemmingway
The Power of One by Ernest HemmingwayThroughout the world, there are many diverse cultures, each of these distinct cultures have different backgrounds, rituals and practices. These cultures have a profound effect on the minds of their inhabitants. It’s a person’s culture which effects their thoughts, beliefs and their outlook upon life. It doesn’t matter where you are from or where you go to, you always have a piece of your culture with you wherever you are. It is your cultural heritage’s and background which molds your mind, and your thoughts of how you perceive the world around you. In every culture different aspects of the society are viewed differently. Some cultures share similarities with other cultures about how they view things. In many cultures sports plays a key role in the society, and many times the whole community is based around the sports. No matter where you are from, sports will always play a role in the society. Many times in literature you can tell where the setting is or where the author is from by the way the community or society in the literature view sports. If you look at the literature that authors produce and where they are from, you will notice a common trend in all of their work. The cultural heritage of the writer affects the perspective in which they write from or about. The cultural heritage affects the writers perspective in many different ways, among them are stereotypes and the setting of the story and the everyday activities that the character go through. Two prime examples of how an authors cultural heritage affects the perspective that they write from is the South African author Bryce Courtenay and the American author Ernest Hemingway.
Bryce Courtenay was born and raised in South Africa and received his early education there. He spend the majority of his adolescent life in South Africa and in his final year in Africa he spent it in the copper mines of Central Africa, before he moved to England to complete his education.1 Courtenay spent his early life in Africa, and the African culture had a profound affect him. His time in the copper mines also had a penetrating effect on him and it is visible in his writing, when he wrote about the mines in Africa. In the book The Power of One, Courtenay writes form the perspective of a young British boy in South Africa which shows how cultural heritages affects the writers perspective.
It is apparent that the prejudices had a astonishing affect on Courtenay, especially with the hatred between the Boers, Blacks and the British. Because of the hatred going on in South Africa at the time of his growing up and even today, you can sense a tone of racism in his writing. “Please, Meneer, he hates kaffirs (blacks) just like you.”2 Frequently in the book the black are referred to kaffirs and other derogatory terms. Through the...
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