America

The two poems “A Bedtime Story” by Mitsuye Yamada and “The Path to the Milky Way leads through Los Angeles” by Joy Harjo along with the short story “A Father” by Bharati Mukherjee all point out problems with American culture and problems within it.

The poem “A Bedtime Story” by Yamada is basically just that, a bedtime story told by a father to a child. The story is about a girl who is looking for a place to sleep but is rejected by everyone of her town. This leads her to walk up a hill where she has a beautiful view of the town under the moonlight, at which point she thanks the village for not taking her in because she would have missed the view. The kid says, “That’s the end?”, implying he is not satisfied with an ending where the girl is happy with her view. In American culture now little things like a view are not appreciated as this kid does not appreciate it.

The next poem, “The Path to the Milky Way leads through Los Angeles” by Joy Harjo describes Los Angeles as “This city named for angels appears naked and stripped of anything/resembling the shaking of turtle shells”. This creates a very negative connotation about the city and portrays it as being evil and more devilish than its name would imply. It also talks about how everyone is strangers. The speaker says, “There are strangers above me, below me and all around me and we are all strange in this place of recent invention”. These lines suggest that Americans are mostly all strangers to each other as well as to their environment. It is not a good thing if Americans are strangers to their environment and this can be interpreted as Americans being ignorant of what is happening right in front of them.

The short story “A Father” by Bharati Mukherjee describes an Indian family who moved to America. The father of the family always liked India and had no desire to leave. His wife was opposite and very ambitious. She wanted to move to America, so the family did. In the story the daughter gets pregnant and when his wife is yelling at her the husband interjects, “Shut up! Babli’s pregnant, so what? It’s your fault, you made us come to the States”. This suggest that this sort of thing is common in the States and something like an illegitimate child would not happen in India or other places. The end of the story is particularly disturbing as the father struck the pregnant stomach with a rolling pin, probably killing the baby. This is the sort of story that is seen on the news a few times a month. This gives a very negative view of American culture, especially compared to India where the father thinks this would never have had happen.