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

Mama Day and Daughters of the diffuse For emigrants of any country it is difficult to maintain the individual culture of their fatherland while assimilating to the managements of the new country they have entered. For slaves of the nineteenth century, the acculturation process was a necessity. If they did not conform to the Western way of life, they would perish. However for some slaves, their geographic location sequestered them enough from the European worldview that they could continue to workout their own culture and religion. Most of these groups were found dark the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, the exact location of ii significant Afro-American muniments Daughters of the Dust and Mama Day. Although the islands did not offer complete sanctuary from the sourness of post-colonial American culture, it did afford the Africans living on those islands more latitude to practice their beliefs. Especially for the younger generations, there was a beckoning from th e dominant culture to gravel part in its opportunities and advantages, which created a drawback for Africans still trying to carve their street corner in the Western society. Daughters of the Dust and Mama Day are put on narratives that vividly recount the experiences of the black 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 2 stories address. Although there are differences between the two works, they are really structural in nature, such as darn and point of view, and are thus not necessary to address currently. Instead, it is important to focus on the values that dominate the African culture and the attitudes that stir and interfere with their way of life in Western society. The narratives share two main themes of which all other themes can be derived. One is the argue between the lifestyles and values of the mainland and the islands and the second is a belief in system of logic and science versus intuition and African folklore. For both stories the island is an integral part of the story, intimately becoming a character unto itself. The nature of an island is such that it has its own record and dynamic, which is appropriate since it is physically dislocated from the mainstream.