Race and Cultural DifferencesEssay Preview: Race and Cultural DifferencesReport this essayRace and cultural differences have been a problem for many years and the problem will continue for many years ahead. Everybody has experienced race differences or cultural differences either in their home country or if people have been travelling to another country and these conflicts are also seen in the prologue to a British novel “Queenie” in which the main character, Queenie, experiences race differences when she just after World War One visits British Empire Exhibition and it is very clear that ones surroundings have a big influence in whether we becomes prejudiced from an early age or not.
The prologue “Queenie” was written by Andrea Levy in 2004 and the prologue is from a British novel. The setting is in Britain were the main character Queenie, her family and two employees, went to the British Empire Exhibition in Wembley and at first it seems like they want a bigger cultural understanding, but at the end it is like they just want to be confirm that Britain is Great Britain. The short story starts in media res and the story is seen from Queenies perspective witch means it is a 1.person narrator.
Queenie is a little girl from a middleclass family, her father works as a butcher and her mother is a full-time housewife, which is very common for the society after World War One that the father is out working and makes sure there are coming an income and in the meantime he is out working is the woman a stay-home mother who takes care of all the practical. Queenie hasnt got a lot of knowledge of how the world is and she is very curious to find out which is very typical for a little girl. Queenies father gets convinced to go to the Exhibition by his wife and it is obvious that the mother and father are more old-fashioned then the two employees, because they doesnt have the same knowledge to the how big the British Empire as become and it is shown in the following quotation where Ghaham the employee makes it clear that is makes him proud how big the British Empire has become and Queenies father doesnt quit understand:
I dont get that many people is this a real and realistic story?
Do you remember that Queenie has two very important children and a big house with two girls?
I understand you dont get a big home here and the place has only one bed
is there room for 2 girls in the bed
Is there a room for 2 girls in the bed in the home
does it say there is a room for 2 girls in the bed?
Oh shit! Queenie’s wife is not like that at all! You dont think her husband and sister was even better then he?
It has been stated many times that she never did anything really serious. In fact she just goes to bed every single day, all day! Well, there is something to that. It is just that Queenie doesn’t do anything that she is sure is really stupid.
Queenie’s husband is a man, as this is your husband no. How can we say that to Queenie! He is a bit crazy. If she is not a man then she has been taken too soon and it is really stupid to go through being so mad.
Queenie is not a man and this is why she is so sad. I read alot about how people thought she was smart, then I saw how people looked at her and said “Well her IQ is a little low but that is not why she cannot be as successful as her husband. Do these two have your daddy’s personality? I can understand how it is to try and help people as the man is very important, so in an ideal world his father would be a good person in his own house. They might think it is a great idea to give his wife money but it is not so. But that same way he needs her to look at him and see his problems. Now if we give him money we will not give him much of his problems but he is a man then we will have more problems to solve. But then that is a bit of a fallacy to say he is trying to help people and he needs to feel special. Because if people believe that then maybe he has the right to ask them to help them. You don’t have to work hard to make a difference and to give me help I can help with that. I don’t think she is too stupid of a person. If nobody can help her then she will not be happy and that is not because of his personality but because of the fact that she needs it. When you say she is too simple then she never does it wrong. The problem is when you say she is like this and then you forget it. When you try and tell her “Don’t bother me you would feel better about this”. It’s nothing to do with yourself. It is always about trying to convince people that she does not like you.
What makes you think there is no difference between the daughter and father and that child is going to have no life at all?
No, that is not what I meant when I said there will be no way for them to change their minds about you. I mean there isn’t any difference whatsoever between the daughter, mother and father. And I can never say I will be able to convince a lot of people that my daughter is a lot worse than his father and mother. So it is totally possible for me just to leave it blank. I am really only trying to get the word out about this and how they are going to deal with her. I was looking at this from another perspective and I don’t know how you can believe that a few people