Rhetorical Analysis Essay Many customs can be depicted as unusual if observed by someone outside of the traditional society. Within the United States many cultural practices found in other regions are considered peculiar. American culture boasts traditions and customs that can be considered idiosyncratic by other societies. In "Body Rituals Among the Nacirema," Horace Miner effectively conveys his message through the use of irony and sarcasm. The essay, written in the form of an anthropological study, critiques the cultural practices of American society by presenting them as the strange and bizarre rituals of a mysterious tribe called the Nacirema. The following quotes demonstrate how Miner uses language and literary techniques to convey his message."The fundamental belief of the Nacirema is that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendencies are towards evil." (Miner, 1956) This quote highlights the absurdity of the Nacirema's beliefs and reflects the negative attitudes that many people in American society have towards …show more content…
Miner uses exaggerated language to make a statement about the excessive lengths that people in American society will go to in order to maintain their appearance. Horace says "the daily mouth-rite is performed in front of a special bench, in which the practitioner sits, with a bowl of sacred water at hand, and examines every part of his mouth in a highly ritualized manner." This quote underscores the level of detail and formality with which the Nacirema approach their body rituals, and highlights the absurdity of these practices. Through these quotes and the use of description and satire, Miner effectively conveys his message to the reader about the dangers of cultural relativism and the importance of taking a critical view of one's own cultural beliefs and
The Nacirema’s are said to be a tribe located between Canada and Mexico. With very exotic beliefs and customs, the Nacirema’s are viewed as vein and selfish. They focus on an obsession and a hatred of the human body. If you have not already figured it out, Nacirema is American spelled backwards. In the essay Body Ritual among the Nacirema, Horace Miner explains American culture and customs which he finds to be very exotic and unusual.
Miner takes the simple American traditions and breaks them down to their raw form. For example, the way he describes the plain task of brushing our teeth as “inserting a small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth, along with certain magical powders, and then moving the small bundle in a highly formalized series of gestures.” In all honesty, the way he describes it is completely factual, but because we have become so used to doing it, we do not see how peculiar it essentially looks. Miner takes how we would explain another cultures traditions and turns it on ourselves. He evaluates what we see as normal and transforms it into something that seems unnecessary or strange.
Instead, he wrote about a tribe, the Nacirema, which is backwards for American in a way that made people think that they are insane but in reality, it's what humans do every day just worded differently. A problem solution problem is evident in this satire. The problem is the humans view of the human body being, "ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease," is the Nacirema's idea of themselves at. Miner uses this view as the problem and gives all of activities that humans do as a
In Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, Horace Miner develops a weird, quirky society called the Nacirema that is made up of natives who go about their day doing odd rituals and tasks. The purpose of the story was to have people judge other cultures less harshly by making them step back and think about what they were perceiving. Additionally, Miner calls attention to how similar cultures are from region to region without even knowing. Sociologists from the perspectives of functionalism, conflict, and symbolic interaction would interpret Nacirema society differently and in a unique way. Throughout the story Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, many ideas that align with the three theoretical perspectives are blatantly displayed by the Nacirema natives.
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.
The Windigo in indigenous mythology is a human who has turned cannibalistic with an insatiable hunger for human flesh. Although the spirit was once human, all sense of morality disappeared within the first bite of their own kind. However, if killing a human being - by any means - is immoral, then the Windigo killers must also become “Windigos” in a psychological sense of the word with their first Windigo kill. In Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road, the two narratives of Niska and Xavier are written as reflections of one another to portray the thin line of morality between the need for survival and the subsequent shift in identity due to individuals’ beliefs not aligning with their reality. This is explored when the question of survival and addiction
Although Native Americans are characterized as both civilized and uncivilized in module one readings, their lifestyles and culture are observed to be civilized more often than not. The separate and distinct duties of men and women (Sigard, 1632) reveal a society that has defined roles and expectations based on gender. There are customs related to courtship (Le Clercq, 1691) that are similar to European cultures. Marriage was a recognized union amongst Native Americans, although not necessarily viewed as a serious, lifelong commitment like the Europeans (Heckewelder, 1819). Related to gender roles in Native American culture, Sigard writes of the Huron people that “Just as the men have their special occupation and understand wherein a man’s duty consists, so also the women and girls keep their place and perform quietly their little tasks and functions of service”.
Even though America has become quite the diverse place with diverse cultures, the cultural appropriation found within the American society contributes to the loss of multiple minority culture’s identity. Native Americans are one of the minority groups most heavily impacted by cultural appropriation. From offensive sports, many American Indians feel as though their cultural identities are lost in the mass of stereotypes and false representations of them in popular culture. In literature and film, Indians are too often portrayed as some variation of “the Noble or Ignoble Savage” (Gordon, 30), violent and uneducated, and it is easy to imagine how this negative representation inspires resentment in the Native American community, who have no interest in having their cultures and peoples being reduced to mere savages,
The Nacirema practices consist of magic driven rituals and ceremonies that shape human behaviour. The rituals and ceremonies establish Horace Miner’s view of Nacirema as American spelt backwards. Initially, the Nacirmea culture originates from the Canadian Cree, Yaqui, Tarahumare of Mexico, the Carib and Arawak of the Antilles. The origin comes from the natives who first landed in America. However, the culture Nacirema comes from the hero Notgnihsaw, who initially is Washington, spelt backwards is the first president of the United States.
This concept of body labor the Kang uses shows us how and why the actions, beliefs and feelings that seem so natural and justified for one group of people can seem rude, demeaning or simply incomprehensible to another group of people. During this study in an attempt to get to know the women better and in a sense to help them assimilate into their new country. Kang offers to teach the women English; after one lessen, they choose not to continue. When asked why they tell her how they need to know how to say phrases like “‘You look like you lost weight’, this showed Kang that the manicurist understood the expectations that they attend to their customer’s needs, a task that many did consciously and often times humorously(Kang pg. 26). In the opening of Kang’s, book she writes “Two women, virtual strangers, sit hand in hand across a narrow table both intent on the same thing-the achievement of the perfect manicure”(Kang pg. 1).
They are often labeled as uncivilized barbarians, which is a solely false accusation against them. This paper aims to address the similarities between Native American beliefs and the beliefs of other cultures based on The Iroquois Creation Story in order to defeat the stereotype that Natives are regularly defined by. Native Americans are commonly considered uncivilized, savage, and barbarian. Nevertheless, in reality the Natives are not characterized by any of those negative traits, but rather they inhabit positive characteristics such as being wise, polite, tolerant, civilized, harmonious with nature, etc. They have had a prodigious impact on the Puritans
Throughout history, there have been many literary studies that focused on the culture and traditions of Native Americans. Native writers have worked painstakingly on tribal histories, and their works have made us realize that we have not learned the full story of the Native American tribes. Deborah Miranda has written a collective tribal memoir, “Bad Indians”, drawing on ancestral memory that revealed aspects of an indigenous worldview and contributed to update our understanding of the mission system, settler colonialism and histories of American Indians about how they underwent cruel violence and exploitation. Her memoir successfully addressed past grievances of colonialism and also recognized and honored indigenous knowledge and identity.
I believe part of the reason a vast amount of the people reading Miner’s book would not recognize America as Nacirema is the language he uses in describing the ways the people do their “rituals”. Many people take medicine, brush their teeth, go to the dentist, and go to the hospital but it is the way they think about it and how Miner describes it that do not line up in their
Don’t ask why it is necessary that you duck boots, just get them. They are not really that fashionable, and they are very expensive. Everyone else has them, though, so I have to get them, no doubt about it. In the article Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, by Horace Miner, American culture is satirized due to the way some practices and beliefs are so deeply indoctrinated into us that the American people fail to recognize how strange all of them really are. In “1848: When America Came of Age,” by Kurt Andersen, American society from the 19th century, most specifically the year 1848, is described by a series of movements and the emergence of the many beliefs that dominate American culture.
Science journalist, Charles C. Mann, had successfully achieved his argumentative purpose about the “Coming of Age in the Dawnland.” Mann’s overall purpose of writing this argumentative was to show readers that there’s more to than just being called or being stereotyped as a savage- a cynical being. These beings are stereotyped into being called Indians, or Native Americans (as they are shorthand names), but they would rather be identified by their own tribe name. Charles Mann had talked about only one person in general but others as well without naming them. Mann had talked about an Indian named Tisquantum, but he, himself, does not want to be recognized as one; to be more recognized as the “first and foremost as a citizen of Patuxet,”(Mann 24).