Culture and Society in Literature
Culture and Society in Literature
An analysis of the themes of culture and society in Bob Bryson's "The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America" and H.G. Wells's "The Country of the Blind".
1,256 words (
approx. 5 pages) |
4 sources |
MLA | 2004
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Paper Summary:
This paper examines how living in a small community means knowing your neighbors, their history, and all the aspects of their lives. In particular, it looks at how there has always been a division of 'they' and 'we' within the cultural determinants of society. It shows how, in Bryson's "Lost Continent", he becomes the "other" in a world where acceptance is based on being a small town resident. It also examines how, in the short story, "The Country of the Blind", by H.G. Wells, difference is also what defines the relationship between a group and an individual.
From the Paper:
"As Bryson characterizes it: "It was inconceivable that a nation so firmly attached to small-town ideals, so dedicated in its fantasies to small-town notions, could not have somewhere built one perfect place--a place of harmony and industry, a place without shopping malls and oceanic parking lots, without factories and drive-in churches, without Kwick-Kraps and Jiffi-Shits and commercial squalor from one end to the other" (39). This is the place Bryson names "Amalgam." It is a combination, amalgamation of the attributes of small town perfection. It is too cute and wonderful to be real. Like Sun Valley, Idaho (and the western movie set), it has built a facade of what is believed to be the epitome of what it is supposed to be. It is too real to be true; too innocent to harbor the sin and corruption or, at least, too lost to discriminate between what is and isn't a part of the observable culture."
Culture and Society in Literature (2012, February 08). Retrieved February 14, 2012, from http://www.academon.com/Analytical-Essay-Culture-and-Society-in-Literature/51437
"Culture and Society in Literature" 08 February 2012. Web. 14 Feb. 2012. <http://www.academon.com/Analytical-Essay-Culture-and-Society-in-Literature/51437>