Today's (Feb. 23rd) discussion in class about the poem "Cultural Diversity" was very fulfilling. I enjoyed how we dissected the poem line-by-line and saw the maturity of a young character by her acceptance of someone who is considered different from her by her very own parents. Through the poem, we learn that this is perhaps the authors first encounter with a Jewish person-Mr. Greenberg-and her parents are making sure that she knows there is a difference between herself and the Jewish man. However, this interpretation can be tricky because even though the parents are making Mr. Greenberg out to be very different from the others, they still accept his beliefs in a way by having the option to eat a burger rather than pork.
There is some dramatic irony in this piece. The author found her parents being very exclusive. She had thought that her parents were not allowing Mr. Greenberg to eat the pork. She was unaware that it was against his religion, although her parents knew it was against his religion, they preferred not to tell their daughter this and instead, made Mr. Greenberg out to be different from the rest. So, after watching Mr. Greenberg and not noticing a difference in his behavior from the others, she offered Mr. Greenberg pork, thinking she was doing the right thing by not excluding him from what everyone else was eating.
I like this response to this piece. I do not think we brought this exact response up, even thought we bought, or listed, about 10. I think this poem is very unique in that you can see many different reasons as to why the narrator offered the burger to Mr. Greenberg. I believe the author had certain intentions in her writing and this is why we get this response. The author intended to write the piece so it was left open-ended, but I do believe that this reading is probably what she intended.
ReplyDeleteI think that this poem, and your interpretation, highlight the innocence of the author. All she knows is that he doesn't believe in Jesus and somehow this means he doesn't eat pork. We had a brief exchange in class where somebody brought up reducing a faith down to what they can and can't do. In this case, her parents are infantilizing this for her just because they don't see the need to go into how and why and what exactly does it meant to Jewish. However, I don't think they're necessarily repressing her, they just don't want to over complicate things.
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