Online World Literature

This essay will require you to put two texts into conversation with one another: Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place and a second course text from the below list. In considering the two texts, you will make an evidence-based argument about how the texts approach sociocultural differences and the interpersonal difficulties such differences may create. You must put equal emphasis on both texts, although Kincaid will be your jumping off point. Essay Topic In A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid depicts several instances in which sociocultural differences lead to misunderstandings, misjudgments, miscommunication, and other interpersonal complications—between the tourist and the Antiguan native, for example; between black Antiguans and white Europeans during the colonial era; and between Kincaid, a British-educated narrator, and younger-generation Antiguans. Furthermore, Kincaid suggests some of the complex historical, cultural, and social reasons that such interpersonal difficulties may have arisen, while also depicting some of the emotional and social consequences of such interpersonal difficulties. Likewise, in other texts we've read in ENG 203, sociocultural differences such as race, class, caste, culture, and age also complicate interactions and relationships. At the same time, these complications also lead to various difficulties and consequences. The key question you need to answer in your essay is this: In A Small Place and your second text, how and why do sociocultural differences complicate interpersonal relationships? In answering this question, be sure to consider and analyze both texts equally, and analyze both why sociocultural differences complicate relationships and how those differences produce complications and consequences. Possible second texts Ama Ata Aidoo, Anowa Meena Alexander, "Grandmother's Letters" K. Saraswathi Amma, "The Subordinate" Jose Rizal, Noli Me Tangere 62.