do not go gentle into that light
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
A Cultural Dilemma
This essay was written the first semester of Sophmore English (fall 2001) for Mrs. Jacob's class. It is in response to two stories from our textbook, Marriage Is a Private Affair and Love Must Not Be Forgotten. I really loved this essay, especially the conclusion, because I can relate to it.
Today in America third-generation adults and adolescents, descendents of the Great Immigration of the early 1990s, are without a culture. The United States was once heralded as the "melting pot" of the world, but with the mix of races over the past century traditions have been forgotten and many American citizens are lost of an identity and a background. This is not so for the characters of Marriage Is a Private Affair and Love Must Not Be Forgotten, respectively Nnaemeks and Shanshan. It is the fact that both characters have nourishing cultures that troubles them.**
Nnaemeka is of the Ibo, a Nigerian culture with firm beliefs -- deference to parents, marriage within the tribe, and arranged matrimony. However, society is changing as many of the young, including Nnaemeka, move away from the tribe to live in the "modern world...