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Cargando... On Being Foreign: Culture Shock in Short Fiction, An International Anthologypor Tom J. Lewis
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A selection of short stories by such authors as Albert Camus, Jorge Luis Borges, Jane Bowles, Joseph Conrad, Stephen Crane, Hermann Hesse, Rudyard Kipling and Katherine Mansfield. They lead the reader through the stages of cross-cultural adjustment and provide insights into the psyche of the foreigner. The work is designed as a text in advanced English as a second language, in world literature courses and for intercultural studies. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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On Being Foreign has an introduction which clearly explains the five phases of culture shock as follows: Preliminary Phase, Spectator Phase, Increasing Participation Phase, Shock Phase, and Adaptation Phase. With this sociological clinical explanation the stories in the book have been put into sections accordingly. Interestingly they claim that the phases of culture shock expand and contract with the amount of time one spends in the foreign culture, whether a three week vacation or a ten year ex-pat sojourn.
Despite the fact that these are fictional tales, the characters experiences and emotions are true to life, and somehow demonstrate the tragedy of culture shock. I say tragedy because rarely does someone come out of the experience without lasting effect, and somehow it’s never a purely positive adventure either. My favorite story is “An Outpost of Progress” by Joseph Conrad. It takes place at an obscure African trading post in Sierre Leone. Two white men are left to manage the station, not to be visited again, or have any contact, by their “Great Trading Company” for some months. The local African tribesmen attempt to communicate, have some type of relationship, but the individuals dropped off in this alien land can never quite relax, or begin to understand what is going on around them. By virtue of this shortcoming their lives cascade into a disaster of indigenous disease, albeit beyond their control, and their own trigger fingers.
There are more subtle stories than the “An Outpost of Progress” which demonstrate subtle shifts of consciousness in a foreign land. They explore how one’s mind imagined a place, and how the reality is an awakening to something totally different. It is rare in our global world today to not either have experienced culture shock oneself, or to be involved in some way with people who are experiencing it around you. For this reason you should expand your mind, embrace our multi-cultural world and read this book.
MAT08-09 ( )