Culture and Appreciation

Bharati Mukherjee’s “A Father,” Joy Harjo’s “The Path to the Milky Way Leads through Los Angeles,” and Mitsuye Yamada’s “A Bedtime Story” are each works in which the writer is exploring her own culture. These writers use the knowledge of their cultures to create unusual viewpoints on the challenges faced by the characters. In each of the works, the characters have certain expectations that are not met and through their own ways they learn that they must appreciate what they have.
Harjo’s “The Path to the Milky Way Leads through Los Angeles,” is a poem in which the narrator lives in a city where she feels as a stranger. The narrator (and writer) is Native American and her views and beliefs do not coincide with what she sees in Los Angeles. According to her tradition, a city named for the angels would resemble a city with “the shaking of turtle shells, the songs of human voices on a summer night outside Okmulgee.” Yet what he sees in Los Angeles “appears naked and stripped of anything” that would resemble what she imagined. The narrator is saying that although she is lost in this strange city with strange people, she must matter and everyone must matter to someone. With the first few lines the reader gets the feeling of separation and different cultures but with the next few lines, she creates a feeling of connection between her culture and the culture of Los Angeles. All the people including her are connected through “the strange God” to whom they must matter and that they are all on “the path to the Milky Way.” With his choice of words, he seems to be saying that with all of the things that go on in the city, people separate man and nature. For example he says that in the city “we cant easily see that starry road from the perspective of the crossing of boulevards,” but “ we can buy a map here of the stars’ homes.” We cant “hear it in the whine of civilization,” but we can “dial a tone for dangerous love,” and we cant “ taste the minerals of planets in hamburgers,” but we can “ choose from several brands of water or a hiss of oxygen for gentle rejuvenation.” He seems shocked by what the people of Los Angeles do. He says that people “know that you cant buy love,” but you can “still sell your soul.” The narrator is disappointed with what he sees in the city, compared to what he had imagined. He ends the poem on a note of hope, when he says that he is still waiting to see what it is that he doing in Los Angeles, and like the crow “collect the shine of anything beautiful I can find.” This poem is about being able to connect with people of a different culture and shows that there is always hope of being able to assimilate in a new land. It also show the reader that rather then comparing something to what we expected it to be like, we should enjoy and cherish what we are surrounded with.
Mitsuye Yamada’s “A Bedtime Story” is a poem in which the narrator has high expectations for the story her father tells her, and is humorously disappointed by its unadorned ending. The narrator tells the reader of the Japanese legend that was read to her by her father. In this legend an old woman looking for a place to sleep for the night goes from door to door in many villages. They all turn her down until she finally decides to lie outside to rest for a while. As she sits the moon comes into view, and she sits up and gives thanks to the village people because had they offered her a place to stay, she would not be able to see such a beautiful sight. The narrator expecting a grand ending to the story shouts “That’s the end?” This poem, like Harjo’s “The Path to the Milky Way Leads through Los Angeles,” is a poem about cultural expectations. The father pauses at the end of the story to allow his daughter to take in and understand the importance of it and the lesson to be learned from it. The legend tells the reader that we must appreciate what we have and that everything happens for a reason. But the narrator is disappointed and being a child she expected a grand story with vivid details and a colorful storyline, and fails to see the importance of what her father just related to her. When the narrator says “in the comfort of our hilltop home in Seattle overlooking the valley ,” she is telling the reader that living in a comfortable and safe environment she was unable to appreciate what she had. Because there are no names used, and the fact that the narrator uses a common legend to relate her point allows the poem to be applied to everyone’s life. So the narrator is urging us to see what we have with a different perspective and understand the importance of those things in our lives and appreciate them.
In Bharati Mukherjee’s “ A Father” the characters face a similar challenge of establishing their culture and beliefs within a different country and appreciating what they have. Mr. Bhowmick had wanted to stay in India while his wife urged him to apply for their green cards so they could move to America. The narrator describes his life in Bombay as fulfilling and lighthearted but in Detroit “he was a lonelier man.” Every morning he rises and makes a prayer to their God while his wife complains that his prayers have been getting too long. The wife wants to blend in with the culture of America and it becomes evident through not only the manner in which she treats her husband but her daily routine. Their daughter Babli is similar to Mrs. Bhowmick, which is evident through her father’s description of her in which he says she “ couldn’t comfort him. She wasn’t womanly or tender the way unmarried girls had been in the wistful days of his adolescence.” He seems unappreciative of the positive qualities of his daughter and wife and focuses of what makes them different from what his culture expects of them. He never expected his daughter to get pregnant and is forced to choose between “public shame for the family, and murder.” Unable to deal with the thought of shaming his family by having a daughter that is pregnant and unmarried, he kills the baby. This story shows that being unable to see the importance of what you have and appreciating it has disastrous effects.