Mama Day and Daughters of the Dust :: African American Culture Literature Essays

Mama Day and Daughters of the sprinkle For emigrants of any country it is baffling to maintain the individual culture of their homeland while assimilating to the ship look of the new country they have entered. For slaves of the 19th century, the acculturation process was a necessity. If they did non conform to the Western way of keep, they would perish. However for some slaves, their geographic location sequestered them enough from the European worldview that they could continue to practice their feature culture and religion. Most of these groups were found off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, the take on location of 2 important African-American narratives Daughters of the Dust and Mama Day. Although the islands did not offer complete sanctuary from the harshness of post-colonial American culture, it did afford the Africans lifetime on those islands more latitude to practice their beliefs. Especially for the younger generations, at that place was a beckoning from the dominant culture to take part in its opportunities and advantages, which created a drawback for Africans stillness trying to carve their niche in the Western society. Daughters of the Dust and Mama Day are fictional narratives that vividly recount the experiences of the disastrous slave family during the 1800s. Although they take different narrative forms, the former as a movie and the latter as a book, there are still several important themes concerning the emerging African-American culture a way of life that incorporates the native African worldview with the newly acquired American lifestyle that the two stories address. Although there are differences between the two works, they are really geomorphologic in nature, such as plot and point of view, and are then not necessary to address currently. Instead, it is important to focus on the set that dominate the African culture and the attitudes that enhance and interfere with their way of life in Western society. Th e narratives share two main themes of which all other(a) themes can be derived. One is the struggle between the lifestyles and values of the mainland and the islands and the assist is a belief in logic and science versus intuition and African folklore. For both stories the island is an integral part of the story, almost becoming a fibre unto itself. The nature of an island is such that it has its own personality and dynamic, which is appropriate since it is physically splay from the mainstream.