cultural discontinuity

Joy Harjo’s “The Path to the Milky Way Leads through Los Angeles” and Bharati Mukherjee’s “A Father” all present themes of cultural discourse and discrepancy. By juxtaposing various cultures and lifestyles each author makes a statement about American culture that forces their, presumably American, readers to look at themselves in a highly critical, yet constructive, manner.

In “The Path to the Milky Way Leads through Los Angeles”, Harjo pinpoints the oddities of American culture by comparing it to the Milky Way and outer space. The poem, which is presented from the viewpoint of an American immigrant, aligns the narrator’s transition into American society with the reader’s hypothetical transition into outer space. Just as we would be shocked by the technological superiority of extraterrestrial life, the narrator is shocked by our vast intelligence. In saying that “we are all strange in this place of recent invention”, she creates a distinct parallel between the inventiveness of American society and outer space. Nonetheless, whereas we often view outer space as barren and devoid of all forms of life, the narrator mentions that “the city named for angels appears naked and stripped of anything”. This, undoubtedly, reveals the “self-centered” nature of American society wherein most Americans act primarily out of concern for their own well-being rather than the well-being of others. Such a reference to the seclusion of American society also pays reference to the growing tendency of Americans to remain indoors, fixated on televisions or computers, playing video games for hours upon hours. But yet, in contrast to this “emptiness” that seems to be created by societies inward fixation, the narrator criticizes the overdevelopment and population of the United States by highlighting her inability to see, hear, or taste “that starry road”. Additionally, she mocks American morality and materialism by citing how “you can still sell your soul for less than a song to a stranger who will sell it to someone else for a profit”. However, amid all of these masked criticisms lies a blatantly obvious interpretation of American society from the eyes of an immigrant. The words strange and stranger, for example, are used frequently to emphasize the narrator’s feelings of alienation; inevitably creating a clear and comical connection to the use of outer space in describing the abnormalities of American culture.

Leaving all references to extraterrestrial life aside, Mukherjee’s short story, “A Father”, presents a very similar criticism of American society. Like Harjo’s poem, the story looks at American culture through the eyes of immigrants. Mr. and Mrs. Bhowmick are native Indians who have come to America in search of employment and greater opportunity and their daughter, Babli, is a native born American (meaning that she was born within the boundaries of the United States). Babli, unlike her parents, who were accustomed to the traditional methods of Indian culture, has grown up in a strictly American society characterized by female empowerment, advanced technology, and entertainment media. Nevertheless, her understanding of her heritage is distinctly different from that of her parents. As her father notes, she is educated and accomplished with a high-paying job, yet unskilled in the tasks that he considers to be wholly “feminine”. Similarly, her views, which become clear in her use of in vitro fertilization, seem to be far more radical than any of her parents—the ultimate cause of conflict.

Drawing on this idea of viewpoints, the mother and father seems to swap viewpoints various points throughout the story. Initially, the father is complaining of his wife’s progressive ideas, but when it comes to addressing their daughter’s pregnancy it seems that he becomes the more progressive thinker. Hence, this constant transition between modern and traditional thinking plays an important role in the interpretation of the piece because it strongly emphasizes the impact of American society on outside cultures. It calls attention to “Americanization” and conformity and highlights the eccentricity of American culture in comparison to other cultures.

Hence, in comparing American culture to other, more traditional, cultures we Americans are forced to look at ourselves in an entirely different light. But yet, whereas some would expect these pieces to have a negative impact on our opinion of American culture, they simply force us to appreciate our differences.