Caught In The Storm African Culture example essay topic

330 words
Caught in the storm is story detailing the clash between traditional African culture and the imposed European culture in Mali. During the eighteenth century Europeans started to impose t hier traditions and styles of life in West Africa. This sometimes caused problems within the community of the people. People started to behave european like, studied languages of their colonial rulers. This story highlights the struggles of the people that was ceased by the intervention of the Europeans with the West African's culture.

Kids started to attend colonial schools and often would go on to live and work in Europe. Kany, a young Malian girl was attending one of this colonial schools in Mali. Kany wishes to marry the young man she fell in love with while attending the colonial school. Instead, her father wishes her to marry the man he has choose for her, a prosperous businessman, as the tradition of their people dictates. Arranged marriages appear a lot in all kind of cultures as well as in Mali culture. Parents, who believed to be older and wiser arrange marriages for their kids.

This concept is in one way understandable but in the other seems to be unfair to the arranges. This conflict is resolved through mediation and compromise among members of both the colonial influenced younger generation, and the older generation who cling to their traditional beliefs. Although older generation is the one who was always before making all the decisions and resolved conflicts, this one goes farther and touches both the older and the younger generations. The conflict between Kany and her father symbolizes the conflict between the two cultural systems present in later day colonial Africa. Caught in the storm is the perfect description of the novel, because it portraits the most difficult problem of other culture influence, by which the people don't know what to do and which side to take..