Analysis Of Body Ritual Among The Nacirema By Horace Miner

According to folklore, chopping down the cherry tree in his backyard was an impetuous mistake made by George Washington. When Washington’s father confronted him, he stated that he could not tell a lie and then proceeded to confess what he had done, making this reaction a positive one although some reactions are contradictory. The way characters react to their mistakes presents the theme in both The Scarlet Letter and The Other Wes Moore. Authors Nathaniel Hawthorne and Wes Moore vary the reply provided by characters to represent the importance of these reactions. Authors of The Scarlet Letter and The Other Wes Moore develop characters’ reactions to mistakes using both imagery and situational irony.

The author Horace Miner expresses his understanding of the psyche behind the unique yet horrible body rituals among the Nacirema tribe. According to anthropologists, human behavior is highly unpredictable and diverse, and different people react differently even under the same conditions. In this essay, Miner’s basic storyline is this very fact: upto what extremes can the human behavior endure. The main idea that he wants to express is not the horror of some body rituals among the Nacirema tribe, but the reason why and under which circumstances this tribe endures such rituals. He tries to understand this exotic custom to see the extremes of human behavior.

In the article " Body Ritual among The Naricema", Horace Miner speaks about a tribe and thier extremely perculiar behaviors. He goes on to explain how this tribe performs odd daily rituals, discussing them as unfamiliar people. By Miner speaking of specific behaviours and these "rituals" performed by this tribe, he allows people to gain an understanding of how cultural misunderstandings can occur by not having the knowledge of a society's basis. In this article it is obvious that Miner is making reference to the American people, but by portraying them as an odd tribe with strange behaviours, you as the reader are forced to try to understand the rituals and customs from an etic perspective. Miner often uses satire to show The Naricema or American people as being obssessed with rituals based on the vanity of the body.

We all know that satirical stories are written to attract readers; we, as readers, somehow relate to them as we compare and contrast them to our own lives, looking unto both sympathetic and unsympathetic characters, and questioning which are we most like. Raymond Carver, who is noted for his “minimalistic type of prose,” proves what we know of the typical satire. In his short story, “Cathedral,” we realize the difference between looking and seeing. The sympathetic character of the story is Robert, a blind man who sees the world not with sight but with insight. He meets a man whose vision is intact but fails to see the world at its best.

The things that one culture finds as being normal could be viewed as strange and abnormal to another. The role that women play in “Women in the city of the Dead” would be look be considered abnormal in American women. The fact that women are looked down upon for not being able to conceive a child, but in American culture not being able to conceive a child is a normal

Horace Miner, a American Anthropologist wrote an academic essay titled “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema.” In this article Miner described some of the bizarre rituals and practices of the “Nacirema” which the reader comes to find out that he is talking about North Americans. The way Miner goes into detail about how these people live makes them seem foreign. Thus making the norm for an American lifestyle seem odd because the certain type of lingo Miner uses to make this “tribe” more exotic then the actually are. His point in doing this is to show the reader how obnoxious anthropologist can be when they are explain a different culture.

This rite of passage is performed so as to allow the duppy to join ancestral spirits. On the night immediately following a person’s death, a wake is held. It lasts several nights so as to allow funeral arrangements to be made. According to Nathaniel Samuel Murrell, “the body may be kept for a maximum of nine days, at the end of which (that is, on the night before burial) the ‘Nine-Night’ ritual is performed” (264). Jean Besson describes the duppy as a dual soul that is believed “to leave the body at death, after remaining for a few days at the place of death or burial to join the ancestors” (30).

Haitian Vs Americans Culture According to Samuel Lagerlof “Culture is what remains when that which has been learned is entirely forgotten” (as cited in Usunied,1996, p.94). Every single country in the world possesses his own culture no culture is more important than another. They’re just different. However, Haiti’s culture differs from the United States in three major points; Values, religion, and norms.

For example, one way he shows satire is in the beginning of the prompt he says “country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism”(Twain). Twain is showing how the soldiers were ready for war that even their chest was on fire because of how much patriotism they had. When soldiers go to war I don't think there breast burned them for feeling patriotic. This shows how ironic he is because that didn't really happen. Twain trys to explain to the people how the soilders were so happy to go fight and knew they were going to win

Eighner also implements the use of irony to reflect his attitude towards wastefulness. Dumpsters are originally designed for the discard of the worthless. Contrasting, the dumpsters Eighner’s referring to are “very rich” and full of good items like food and journals. Eighner’s use of irony notes how society today is careless of what they throw out. The consumers can make something worthless, priceless.

The tree symbolizes hope again in chapter thirty-one. Brooks gives Alpha Company orders to blow up the tree on top of the knoll (Del Vecchio 551). After the tree was blown up, enemy soldiers surrounded Alpha Company and started to attack them. The enemy soldiers appeared out of nowhere and killed soldiers from Alpha Company, which resulted in the lost of hope amongst the boonierats (Del Vecchio 560). Rebirth is shown after Alpha Company leaves the knoll where the tree used to be.

This provided a great exigence for Miner to construct this article in his efforts to sway the general population’s opinion. Instead of taking a literal and more direct approach, Miner wrote this article as an argument very discreetly with the purpose to expose the American culture for what it truly is; narcissistic and conceited. By making the argument so hidden, the author allows for the audience to be vulnerable to the argument. Throughout the whole articles, readers think that the Nacirema is this radical, extreme society with intense rituals for their appearance. Once the reader realizes all of these rituals are coincidentally very similar to the ones Americans participate in every day, Miner captures the reader’s attention.

The author expresses how the poor deals with their problems – with positivity and optimism. Rather than feeling devastated and doing nothing, usually, they strive to find a way in solving their problems. Disasters and calamities may wipe out their homes but not their hope. It only fuels their courage as they face upcoming challenges in their lives. Moreover, one thing that the poor have in common is that they do not only think of themselves, rather they are ready to help one another.

They name Nacirema spelled backwards is American. They really aren’t another culture. They are the American culture, made to seem extreme because that is how they seem to other places. The crazy acts are what people in America go through everyday, but they are not considered crazy until they are seen from another

In Daniel Orozco's short story, "The Orientation" a new employee has been thrown into what seems like a casual introduction tour of an office by an unknown guide whose explanation of the rules and claims gradually become ridiculous than his last. The new employee has been given insight into the goings on's along with the do's and don'ts when interacting with alleged paranormal and murdering coworkers in a nonchalant way. There's this eery and thrilling tone being set up by Orozco that leads the reader to question the legitimacy of the rules and the lack of social mechanisms in response to unusual scenarios going on in the workplace. It makes the reader think, "could this tour of the office just be a gossip tell-all from a unanimous tour guide