Multicultural Literature

  Hello and welcome to my blog!  My name is Avis McCray, and I am near completion of a degree in English with an emphasis in Professional Writing at Grand Canyon University. I have always loved to write–both personally and professionally. Personally, I have tried my hand at writing poetry and short stories. During my middle school years, one of my class assignments in my literature class was to write a book of poems. Writing poetry came so naturally to me. Much to my surprise, I could also draw pictures that were relevant to my poems. My teacher was so impressed with my work that she contacted my parents and told them they should really consider getting my work published. I have never been published, but I certainly have not stopped writing and I have not come away from the idea of getting my work published. Professionally, I am Director of Advancement at The Briarwood School in Houston, Texas. Here, I am afforded ample opportunities to prospect research and write proposals,...

Imagine falling in love with someone and going to meet their parents for the first time. You put on your best shirt, brush your hair, and spruce up as best you can. Then comes the moment when you are introduced to the family. Suddenly you realize that even your best shirt and tidy hair does nothing to help elevate your status to family. It appears that each family member is there staring at you, looking at your clothes and your hair, and asking you all types of questions you have no right answers for. If you could just get up and run you would, but instead you are there glued to your seat while they size you up and in one evening decide that your presence is not wanted, and neither do they want you in their loved one’s life. In Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s “Wedding at the Cross”, we see the blurring of national boundaries on full display. Wariuki is Kenyan and from humble beginnings, while Miriamu, the woman he falls in love with comes from a Christian well-to-do family. Miriamu’s family inv...

Suppose one night someone wakes us from our sleep, and we find ourselves in a whole new world? This new world offers little, if any, nourishment, clothing, medical attention, and things that we may take for granted in our lives. Imagine that those who took us were people we did not know, and they spoke a language we did not understand. Moreover, these strangers loaded us onto trains with our families, several of our neighbors and friends, and dropped us all here in this foreign place that is just short of hell.   Sadly, this scenario closely aligns with what many experienced during The Holocaust. Taduesz Borowski in his, “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen”, tells a horrific story about the treatment of people in concentration camps. Families were ripped apart and millions were beaten, given harsh work to do, starved, shot, and placed in gas chambers. It was one of the most  gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, darkest periods in our history. The story focuses on the daily r...

  Life is filled with opportunities to make choices. At times, the choice is simple and does not require much thought from us at all. Other times, we may find ourselves in situations that cause us to make decisions outside of our comfort zone. Consider a natural disaster such as, a hurricane, winter storm, or volcano eruption. Perhaps we are faced with a pandemic such as COVID-19 which has prompted many to make choices we might not have otherwise made.   Isabel Allende’s “And of Clay Are We Created” is one of those stories about making choices. Although the people of the village had been forewarned by geologists that the volcano could erupt, the villagers were indifferent to the warnings. This choice would later prove to be a deadly mistake as the volcano did erupt and practically buried the entire village underneath rubble and ruin.   As is the case during natural disasters, news crews and photographers arrived upon the...

The literary works of James Baldwin resonate with the trials of today. Although Baldwin died in the late eighties, “Notes of a Native Son” reveal several experiences that resemble the social injustice of the summer of 2020.   The story opens with Baldwin attending the funeral of his father. As he and his family prepared for his father’s burial, Harlem was experiencing one of the most horrific race riots in modern history. While his father had frequently referred to the coming of the apocalypse, Baldwin felt that the unrest he was seeing right before him could certainly serve as a sign of the end of the world. Baldwin’s description of the aftermath eerily resembled the path left behind after peaceful protests turned violent in response to anger and resentment of inequality and police brutality today. “Notes of a Native Son” leaves some readers to wonder if Baldwin somehow saw the pain and anguish that would factor into the civil unrest we are still witnessing in the 21 st century. ...

                                                                                                                                                                                         There is much to be discovered about the underlying meanings of Native American practices and rituals. Although there are many, I want to focus on “The Night Chant (Orature Section)” from Navajo Ceremony. The Night Chant is a practice for healing from various s...

Confucianism , or the philosophy of Confucius, is similar to the Christian viewpoint of treating others the way we would like to be treated. Confucius believed in loyalty and respectability to family and treating others with kindness. What comes to mind is the golden rule of treating others as one wants to be treated. As Matthew 7:12 reads, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” . Likewise, Confucian methods were focused on good ethics and virtue. Virtuous action towards others begins with virtuous and sincere thought, which begins with knowledge. A virtuous disposition without knowledge is susceptible to corruption, and virtuous action without sincerity is not true righteousness.   The characters depicted in Ailing’s “Sealed Off” do not align with the belief system of Confucianism. Early in the story, Zongzhen demonstrates his dislike for both his nephew and his wife. Exasperated with his life, Zongzhen ...

  Multicultural literature is just what it sounds like. It pertains to literature across many cultures. As we have learned over the years, our worldview consists of our values, norms and beliefs that make us in some cases similar to one another and in other cases completely unique from one another. It should not be surprising that the way various cultures approach literature would reflect their belief systems. For example, in an article describing the term “wen”, (Longxi, 1996) wrote that Western culture considers literature to be an individual’s representation of the real world, while Chinese poetry is a literal response to the stimulation of things in the world, thus “wen”. In essence, both cultures do have an appreciation for representing the world in their literature, but their writing approach is vastly different. The “Classic of Poetry” writings vividly reveal “wen”. In “Peach Tree Soft and Tender” the seasons that a tree goes through as it blooms and bears fruit, was compa...