Defining an Approach to Intercultural Studies William Walter McOmie
What is Intercultural Studies? Perhaps it is better to begin by defining what it is not. It is not the study of intercultural communication, although communication between cultures may certainly be part of it. As I have argued in a previous paper (Cross Currents, Vol. XVII, No. 2), the field of intercultural communication is dominated by different disciplines of the social sciences. Communication is an aspect of human behavior on the one hand, and a branch of the social sciences on the other. As a social science it is further divided into the study of mass communications on the one hand, and that of interpersonal communication on the other. Whether intercultural communication constitutes yet another distinct branch, or belongs within the larger category of interpersonal communication is a point of contention among communication scientists themselves. However, at the present time, it seems beyond dispute to assert that the field of intercultural communication lies primarily within the social sciences. In my article,I argued that it should be expanded to include the physical and biological sciences at one end, and the humanities at the other. Yet because of its focus on communication and ' the fact that the study of communication has already largely taken a social scientific approach, perhaps it would be wiser to define a new field, intercultural in focus, but also firmly moored in the humanities. That new field is intercultural studies.
Although the term intercultural studies is already being used elsewhere, it may not have been adequately distinguished from that of intercultural communication.
My purpose in this paper is to define what I mean by intercultural studies:to specify its scope, describe its approach, and delineate its main features, as I conceive them to be. It is an attempt to systematize, categorize and otherwise fill in informational and conceptural gaps which I perceive to exist. Of course, this does not exclude the possibility that others have defined it differently, nor should it prevent anyone from doing so.
By my definition, intercultural studies is an approach to the study and
understanding of different human cultures through the humanities: literature,
history, philosophy and religion. By literature I mean both fiction and non‑ficLion,
and different forms such as novels, stories, short stories, and genres such as
drama, essays, travel writing. It may also include works written by social
scientists, such as anthropologists, which may be put into one of the above
caegories, and which have a more literary, and less social scientific, quality.
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Many writers of fiction have also written travel essays and books based on their experiences and reflections as travellers to a foreign country, or even within their own country. Authors such as Lawrence Durrell, E.M. Forster, William Golding, Aldous Huxley, Wright Morris and John Steinbeck have written fiction dealing with intercultural themes, and also non‑fiction based on their travel experiences, which are in their own way equally valuable and insightful. However, in this paper, I will limit myself to the presentation and discussion of works of fiction only. I plan to discuss non‑fictional works pertaining to intercultural studies in a future article.
Besides the above difference in approach, in what other ways does intercultural studies differ from intercultural communication? First of all, it does not focus only on communication between cultures. It may include communication but is not limited to it. It looks at how cultures interact with each other in the broadest sense, and also at how they function in isolation. In both cases, it looks at what happened, how it happened and perhaps why. Secondly, it does not strive to analyze intercultural interaction in a rigorous, quantitative fashion. It relies on qualitative description, disciplined reflection and literary imagination. Thirdly, it is not necessarily practical. It does not try to train people to interact more effectively in intercultural situations. It does not attempt to analyze such situations through critical incidents or case studies with the idea of improving the quality of interaction across cultures. It strives for intellectual understanding or artistic appreciation of the intercultural process, and they both may have little to do with the practical ability to modify behavior so as to adapt to another cultural envlronment.
It is a form of ̀comparative culture' in that it seeks to compare different cultures with one another and/or with the host/native culture. It looks at the similarities as well as the differences, and assigns them equal weight. All human cultures are alike in some ways. They are all similar in what they do, if nothing else, but may differ greatly in how they choose to do it. The ultimate goal is to gain insights into human behavior and thought in different environments and understand the effects of culture on the human thought process.
Redefining Culture
Recently culture has come out of the closet. That is to say, it has been liberated
of its former association with remote, or primitive tribes studied by
anthropologists or with different ethnic groups or nation states. Now we speak
glibly of ̀business or corporate culture', ̀military culture' or ̀youth culture'
alongside of ̀American culture' or ̀Japanese culture.' Are they really the same
thing? What constitutes a ̀culture' anyway? What are the necessary criteria? First
of all, there must be some set of rules that govern the process of thinking, feeling,
self‑expression, self‑motivation and general behavior toward self and others within the cultural group and outside of it. Secondly, there must be a recognizable group with which the individual in that group identifies and to which he belongs.
Thirdly, there must be some means of passing on the cultural codes to younger individuals and generations in order to establish a tradition.
By these criteria we see that there must be many ̀cultures' which do not coincide with national, ethnic, tribal, religious, or linguistic boundaries. In other words,
̀cultural' may not equal ̀national', and so ̀intercultural' is not always the same as ̀ international'.
American culture is an abstract fiction:real but not realistic. Its influence is ,
pervasive, but it is too large and wooly an idea to represent actual individuais or even concrete groups and classes. As a rule, the bigger and more diverse the country, the less its ̀culture' is shared by the general population, and the less can be applied to unique individuals within it. Some have argued that all Americans have little in common except a desire for freedom and a belief in e,quality. And even those two ideas may be not much more than ̀polite fictions' in many cases, to which significant exceptions can be found.
Thus, inevitably, in modern, complex societies many smaller cultures, or sub‑
cultures, are formed within the framework of the overall culture. These sub‑
cultures may be related to age, such as ̀youth culture' or ̀senior citizens' culture', or to occupation, or profession, such as ̀blue‑collar' or ̀white collar' cultures',
̀business culture' or ̀military culture', or to gender, such as ̀macho culture', or
̀feminist culture', or to wealth, or lack thereof, such as, ̀jet‑set culture' or ̀the culeure of poverty', ̀red neck' or ̀blue nose' cultures, or to religion or ideology, such as ̀fundamentalist or evangelical' culture and ̀liberal or conservative' cultures. The list is potentially endless, limited only by our capacity to distinguish
(or imagine) differences between groups of people in a society, and to impart meaning to them. Indeed, if we wish to continue in our delineation of significant cultural differences, we should not stop until we reach the level of differences between separate families (inter‑family) and even within families (intra‑family), between parents and children, between husband and wife, or between different siblings. Anyone who knows about families, either directly or indirectly, should know that ̀culture‑like' differences between its different members can be profound.
Anyone who comes from a completely harmonious, happy family, may, of course, have the right to disagree.
The interesting thing about many, if not most of the above‑named subcultures is
that they may also be what I want to call transcultures. Because they transcend
traditional‑national, ethnic, tribal, religious, linguistic, ideological‑‑boundaries and
unite people otherwise so separated. Or, at least, give them something in common
that they would not have had otherwise. Thus, they have the potential to reduce
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the ̀interculturalness' of an international encounter, when both parties belong to the same transculture. For example, when an American physician travels to Moscow to attend an international conference and meets his Russian counterparts, even though he may speak no Russian, and they no English, the fact that he shares special knowledge, professional experience and orientation with them, should help to overcome barriers to understanding based on the lack of a common language and general cultural background.
Or, if an English violinist travels to Japan, he may easily communicate with Japanese violinists on one level through his music. And although they may never have a chance to meet, a poor family in one country may have much more in common with a poor family in another, through the transnational ̀culture of poverty' than they do with rich families in their own countries.
In addition, the idea of ̀Western culture' or ̀Eastern culture' is another example of a transculture, linking different countries together culturally, however vaguely.
So, what is intercultural? If we expand our range of meanings too far, we risk rendering it meaningless. Yet if we restrict it only to international contacts, then we limit our potential understanding to only the most obvious cases, and may distort their importance relative to contrasts at other levels. Our common experience as human beings should tell us that differences between people within a culture, may be as significant or even more so, as differences between people from different cultures. And also that these former differences resemble in many ways the latter ones. Whether they are in fact both examples of cultural differences, depends on how we define culture. And the fact that more and more we speak of differences between different groups in a society as ̀cultural' seems to indicate at least implicit acceptance of an expanded definition of culture. If that is so, then we should also enlarge our idea of what may be labelled as ̀intercultural.' Then we have a great deal more works of fiction which we may so classify, and from which we may gather insights and refine and deepen our understanding of all the different aspects of the intercultural process. This includes not only ̀culture shock' but also ̀cultural adaptation' and ̀cultural awareness and enlightenment,'
So far, we have talked about how cultures change across nations, ethnic division, tribes, other groups of people, and even individuals. But cultures change not only through space but also through time. The culture of one nation, ethnic unit, tribe, or other group of people, does not stay the same, but changes over time, as generations change and environmental conditions are altered. Therefore, it is valuable to read literary works on intercultural themes from past ages to demonstrate how cultures have changed, or not changed, and how attitudes toward and beliefs about other cultures have changed or remained remarkably similar in some respects.
Even if there is no obvious intercultural theme, the mere fact of its being
written by an author who lived during an earlier era must reflect the culture of that era, its concerns, its attitudes, its mores, its customs and' conditions. For that reason, whatever its subject matter, it can be a valuable document for the student of culture.
Cultural studies implies intercultural studies. It is actually very hard to study only one culture, without reference to any other. All cultures are hybrids to one degree or another, all are subject to the influence of other cultures. Sometimes cultural borrow‑ings are obvious, and sometimes they are not. Sometimes what is pointed to with pride as a native cultural achievement may turn out to be greatly in debt to some other culture. That is why we can say to study one culture is to study other cultures, and in the deepest sense, all cultures. Recognizing this cultural connection, anthropologists study primitive societies because, although complex enough, are still simpler than that of diverse, modern, super‑complex post‑industrial societies, and can tell us about ourselves.
Reading Literature from an Intercultural Perspective
Now I will proceed to a rr}ore detailed discussion of some of the fictional works contained in the list at the end of this article. As can be seen, I have chosen to start with The Travels of Marco Polo, not because this is necessarily the first work that can be classified as intercultural according to the expanded definition that I have given in the introduction, but because it is the first work with which Iam familiar. Since it was written almost 700 years ago, it is more than old enough to prove my point: that literary works dealing with intercultural themes have been around a long time‑much longer than we might think. Whether it is fiction or fact, is impossible to determine. Since Polo wrote it with the aid of Rustichello of Pisa, a romance writer, it seems safe to say that it is probably a combination thereof. For that reason, I have included it.
The next work of fiction I would like to discuss was written about 100 years later, and is a monument of medieval English literature‑the Canterbury Tales.
Unfortunately, it was never completed. The fragments that exist, however, are sufficient to reveal that the work as a whole was the first to deliberately characterize people from different walks of life and contrast their differing views of life, as revealed in the tales that they tell. It was written in English, as opposed to Latin or French, and even included some Iines in Yorkshire dialect to add strength and authenticity to the characterization. In it, Chaucer brings out the contrasts and conflicts between the educated and uneducated classes in English society, between clerks and tradesmen, clergy and laymen, and also between those with a materialistic and spiritual outlook, between reeve and parson for example.
In those days, as now, a person's occupation or profession, the means by which one
makes a living in the world, was instrumental in forming one's outlook on that
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world, one's values, one's habits of perceiving and conceiving, one's basic experience of the world, in short, one's culture. Therefore, I believe that it is very relevant to intercultural studies. And, also, of course, to Medieval studies, the study of the culture of the Middle Ages. It is an invaluable panorama of medieval life in England, and a excellent reminder that even then societies were not completely homogeneous.
In Utopia by Sir Thomas More, we have an early 16th century example of a literary work that, taking as its reference the culture of its age, attemPts to imagine a better culture, an ideal society, and to describe it in detail. It shows how educated people of the time were aware of their own culture, and its defects, and strived to perfect it. The dual meaning of the title as both ̀good place' and
̀no place' also shows More's recognition of the imperfection of all cultures at the time, as now. It was in the tradition of Plato's The Republic and the progenitor of the modern utopian and anti‑utopian novels listed.
Moving on from More, we come to Marlowe and Shakespeare. The latter is, of course, without peer as a dramatist writing in English, or perhaps, any language.
He was the first great̀ writer in English, whose imaginative genius flowed without interruption from his pen in streams of dazzling inventiveness and whose intuitive insights into human nature and relationships astonish and admonish still today.
He, more than any other writer is the inventor of modern English and we are indebted to him for many more common turns of phrase than we perhaps reali2e.
Although all of Shakespeare's plays could doubtlessly be mined for nuggets of insight into the human mind, and human behavior, I have selected several which I feel especially fit into the expanded framework of intercultural phenomena which is the subject of this paper. This does not mean that other plays could not also arguably be included. His earliest tragedy, Titus Andronicus, takes its character of Aaron the Moor, representing pure evil incarnate, from the character of Barabas, the evil Jewish villain of Marlowe's play The Jew of Malta. Aaron anticipates the character of Iago in Othello and the play anticipates the racial theme of The Mercha'nt of Venice. All of these plays are of topical interest today, not only for what they reveal of the culture of their times, but of what they reveal about the culture of our times. We are still struggling with the same differences in race and culture today.
In Elizabethan times, it was taken for granted that Jews were the stereotypical money‑grubbing moneylenders and they were reviled as ̀the killers of Christ'. Anti‑
Semitism was the norm. In The Merchant of Venice, the Jewish moneylender
Shylock's vengeful, unreasoning demand for a ̀pound of flesh' in compensation for
the Christian merchant Antonio's failure to pay back the money lent to him earned
him the vigorous condemnation of Antonio's friend Gratiano: "O,be thou damned,
inexcrable dog...thy currish spirit Governed a wolf...for thy desires are wolvish,
bloodstained and ravenous." Yet earlier in the play, when Antonio asks to borrow money from him, Shylock recalls how Antonio had on a previous occasion disparaged him and spat on him. He was sensitive to the insults and abuse, the hatred and prejudice he had experienced at the hands of Christians and was naturally desirous of revenge. He asks: "Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?..fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian? If you prick us do we not bleed? if you tickle us do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest we will resemble you in that." Thus, Shakespeare tries to arouse our sympathy for him, and gives us a reason for his unreasonable desire. Although the character of Shylock owes something to that of Barabas in Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, Shakespeare gives us a much more balanced, and as seen through Elizabethan eyes, comic character. It should be mentioned that he also regularly jokes about the national characteristics of other people, such as the Scots, and the French in his plays, such as in the Two Gentlemen of Verona. Although such jokes would not be tolerated, and might lead to lawsuits in the U.S., today, still they show that people of that time were aware of cultural differences between nations. Until relatively recently such jokes were still common fare. Shylock's eloquent rationalization of his desire for revenge shows us that Shakespeare, and pesumably his audience as well, were also aware of the factors that tend to unite human beings across cultural divides, and across barriers o･f prejudice and intolerance.
Othello continues the racial theme of Merchant of Venice. In the latter the crux of the action is that Shylock is a Jew, but in the former the crux of it is that Othello is black, a Moor. As such, he is simpler, but also more suspicious, and jealous. He is aging and feels insecure, uncertain that he can keep Desedemona's love and loyalty. She is the beautiful, charming, innocent young white woman‑his wife‑who becomes the sacrificial victim. It is worth mentioning that the driving force behind the tragedy‑‑the crafty, contemptuous, envious and evil Iago‑is also white.
Antony and Cleopatra explores the cultural differences between men and women, in this case, women's use of their sexual attractiveness to exert power over men.
Cleopatra charms and distracts Antony and thereby ensures his defeat by Octavius.
Here is an example of what some might call the basic cultural difference among human beings‑that between men and women, and also the basic conflict,
The play Timon of Athens concerns the alienation of Timon from his native city.
He banished himself. There are many in the modern world who have also, in effect,
done so, by choosing to live abroad. This play might have something to say to
them about that aspect of the intercultural experience.
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In The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare used his imagination to see deeply into the personality of Leontes, the schizophrenic King, and into the nature of schizophrenia, which can be seen as an extreme manifestation of individual pyschology, whose development may be attributed in part to the influence of culture. His queen, Hermione, the daughter of the Russian Tsar, is put on trial, and feels that she is an alien who can receive no justice in the country into which she married.
Finally, The Tempest, is Shakespeare's last play, whose theme was influenced by events happening in the New World, the English colonies in North America. The character of Caliban is based on the reports of Amerindians coming from America.
In the play he is a savage, debased, deformed slave who wishes to revenge himself on Prospero, and, by extension, all Europeans. He represents Shakespeare's idea of
̀man in a state of nature' that counters the illusions of Montaigne. Shakepare had no illusions about life and the human condition and no one has had deeper insight into human nature, and, hence, human culture.
Gulliver's Travels is a radical critique of human nature which through the use of irony tries to separate the reader from his preconceptions and challenge him to rethink from the beginning his idea of man. It is interesting that the format by which he tries to do this is a record of travels to imaginary countries where the hero has imaginary intercultural encounters. The name of one of the places is not imaginary, however, but comes from the Portuguese word for Nagaski, i.e.
Nangasac.
The two novels by Samuel Richardson, Pamela and Clarissa both have as their central theme the different sexual and cultural orientations of men and women and so could be considered to be intercultural novels.
The Traveller by Oliver Goldsmith is a philosophical comparison of the differing national cultures of western Europe and the degrees of happiness of their people narrated by a restless traveller who yearns after his native country.
The Heart of Midlothian by Sir Walter Scott recalls the recent past of Scotland and shows a society where all had dignity and standing. It was written at a time when English society was becoming industrialized and suffering from increasing class division and loss of human dignity by the lower classes.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is much more than a classic horror story. It is one of the earliest works of fiction to address the emerging scientific culture of the 19th century and call into question its promise to create unalloyed good for mankind. She warns us of the potential horrific results of our arrogant meddling with the forces of Nature.
The famous story of "Rip van Winkle", who fell asleep in the mountains and
woke up twenty years later, can be read as an early illustration of how culture
changes over time. Rip went back to his native village, but barely recognized it,
and at first no one knew or recognized him. He found instead a bustling town, and was almost driven out as a traitorous Tory, until another old‑timer could be found to vouch for his identity. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" can be read as a simple horror story, or as a story about how an outsider can be made a fool of by the natives of the area. It also contrasts the older Dutch families of New York with the English Yankees from New England. Ichabod Crane, the Connecticut schoolteacher, covets the hand and land of a Dutch‑American woman, as does the hearty extrovert Brom Bones. The latter, dressing as a headless horseman, is able to take advantage of Crane's greed and superstition and literally scare him out of his wits and out of town.
The Leatherstocking Tales by Jame Fenimore Cooper are a series of romantic novels dealing with the theme of the settling of the eastern part of the United States by Europeans and their struggles against nature and with the different native American tribes, but also the conflicts between the tribes themselves. For whatever they lack in historical accuracy or ethnic authenticity they may be read with an eye for what they reveal about how Cooper saw that historical era, and how his view of it reflects his own era. The Last of the Mohicans tells the story of Uncas, the last of his tribe, and his father, Chingachgook and the white man Hawkeye. When Uncas dies trying to avenge the death of a young white woman, his father and Hawkeye mourn him together in a way thet transcends race and culture. Hawkeye is partially Indianized and the only one who sees the virtues of both white and red man. The book is a classic statement of the dooming of the Indian way of life, of their physical and cultural detruction. The Yemassee by W.G. Simms recounts the destruction of one Indian tribe by European settlers.
The Littlepage Trilogy by Cooper looks at the landlord/tenant social system in New York and sees the landlords as a source of stability. In contrast, the Yankee tenants are demagogic and unprincipled. The latter are contrasted unfavorably with Indians from the heroic and principled past.
Typee by Herman Melville is a romantic description of native life in the South
Seas. The hero of the story deserts from his ship together with a companion while
it is harbored at the Marquesas islands. They live with a tribe of cannibals, and
Melville has his hero alternating between an anthropologist's studious curiosity
about their exotic diet, customs and rituals and the very real apprehension about
their ultimate intentions toward him, whether they mean to make a meal of him,
and if not, why they won't allow him to leave. In the meantime, he falls in love
with and is loved by a beautiful native girl, and spends many happy hours in her
company in a kind of suspenseful, Shangri‑La like existence. Finally, a boat from
another ship comes to rescue him, and he has a narrow, harrowing escape from his
savage captors. But in escaping he kills one of the warriors of the tribe who is
pursuing the boat. It can be read as a parable on the irreconcilability of
30 William McOmie
civilization and nature. Civilization may love Nature, and Innocence, but it destroys nature and the innocents who inhabit it. The book is based on Melville's own experiences sailing on a whaling ship in the south pacific and living among such a tribe, but it is not clear how much his descriptions are based on fact, and how much on romantic embellishment. In any case, it is worthwhile reading for the serious interculturalist, not only for the romantic, exotic picture of the south seas it provides, but also because that sort of picture was so popular in mid‑19th century America.
Melville's next book, Omoo, describes the native society of Tahiti, midway between savagery and civilization. They are no longer cannibals, which is good, but have also lost the rest of their old culture,'which is bad, Like Cooper, Melville laments the passing of the natural way of life, but unlike him, cannot convince himself that ̀civilization' will be better.
One of the earliest works of fiction recognized by others than the present author as intercultural in theme is The Cossacks by the great Russian author Leo Tolstoy.
It is based on his own experiences as a young Russian officer in the Caucasus and belongs to his early period. It was begun in 1852, but not completed until 1863, and was the last short novel he published before he began to write the monumental War and Peace.
The Cossacks is the story of a young aristocratic Russian from Moscow who, dissatisfied with his dissolute, dissipated lifestyle and wishing to escape from it, goes to the Caucasus as a cadet, in the hope of obtaining a commision. At first, his life there is idyllic, and marked by self‑sacrificing love for his Cossack friends.
Then an acquaintance from Moscow shows up and his platonic, detached love for the Cossack girl Maryanka begins to change into a real romantic love and desire for her, despite her being betrothed to his young Cossack friend and free spirit Lukashka. In the end, Lukashka is seriously wounded and Olenin is decisively rejected by Maryanka. He leaves, without realizing his dream of marrying her and living in a Cossack village.
In this story, Tolstoy seems to be saying that we cannot change who we are.
Civilized man, no matter how much he may admire man in nature, cannot become one. If he tries to, he will only result in destroying himself, or the natural man he admires.
The central theme of the story seems to be the potential attractiveness of a very
different physical and cultural environment to one who is dissatisfied with his own
together with the impossiblity of becoming someone other than what one's
physical inheritance and cultural upbringing have made one, Olenin recognizes the
silliness and superfluity, the fundamental falseness of his Moscow life and
experiences a sort of cultural rebirth in the Caucasus. Ultimately, however, he
realizes the impossibility of his marrying Maryanka and fitting into Cossack
village life. Civilized man, no matter how much he may admire man in nature, cannot become a ̀natural man.' If he tries to, he will only end up destroying himself, or the natural man he admires. This sort of theme is very comrr}on in intercultural stories. Of course, in Olenin's case, it was never a clear‑cut, all‑‑out commitment to becoming a Cossack. He always felt ambivalent;he was acutely aware of his own inhibited, moralistic complexity and admired the natural, spontaneous, free lifestyle of Eroshka and Lukashka. But he was divided within himself: part of him yearned to live like Lukashka, while part of him held him back. His dilemma mirrored Tolstoy's own life: wanting to be a simple peasant, and always held back by his aristocratic inheritance and education and his family responsibilities.
Tolstoy was, like many of his contemporaries, influenced by the writings of the French philosopher Rousseau and his idea of the ̀noble savage' or ̀natural man' uncorrupted by European civilization. And one can find other examples of such
̀natural men' in Tolstoy's literary galaxy, such as the figure of Platon Karataev in War and Peace. His portrayals of them are decidedly favorable, in contrast to Shakespeare's depiction of Caliban. I cannot leave the subject of Tolstoy without mentioning the place of this monumental novel in my expanded intercultural framework. Tolstoy believed that Art should be universal, accessible to everyone and easy to understand. This novel comes closest to that universality of any novel
yet written in any language. To attempt to even argue whether it may be considered ̀intercultural' or not, seriously begs the question. It is an immense tapestry containing many different types and classes of people, acting in many different situations, over a period of several years. As a result, various kinds of intercultural contrast can be found within its pages. It is a huge slice of life and offers a whole world of discovery for students of human nature and behavior.
One way to look at Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking
Glass is as an intercultural tour de force. Although it was written in 1865 it
anticipates so much of the formally recognized literature on intercultural
communication written in the last twenty years. When Alice falls through the
rabbit hole into Wonderland or passes into the Looking Glass world, she
encounters creatures who seem to think and behave in absurdly strange ways and
has extraordinary experiences which seem to defy common sense. And yet how
much her looking‑glass world resembles the world of a culture and society very
different from our own! How similar is her astonishment and perplexity to the
surpise and shock we may experience in our sojourn in a foreign land! And the way
that Alice adapts to her strange environment may aid us in our own efforts at
acculturation to a new and different culture. As I have argued in my previous
paper it can shed real light on the process of intercultural comrnunication as well,
as in Alice's conversation with Humpty Dumpty about the meaning of words. In
32 William McOmie
short, it is as much an intercultural classic as any other sort of classic.
The Marble Faun is Nathaniel Hawthorne's last published novel. Set in Italy, it is one of the earliest examples of an international novel in American literature. It takes as its theme the innocent American in the sophisticated Old World of Europe.
The American expatriate novelist Henry James continues this theme. He is an obvious choice for the student of cultural relations, as several of his novels deal explicitly with the differences in culture between Americans and Europeans. His first novel Roderick Hudson takes as its theme the cultural impact of Europe on an innocent American, which causes him to compromise his own personality to such an extent that he is left with no core self to live in. His next novel The American tells the story of a rich young American businessman who goes to Paris to soak up its culture and to marry a woman who represents the best part of it.
He is attracted to a young woman, and she to him, but her aristocratic family refuse to allow her to marry a mere businessman. Finally, the woman is driven into a convent and the American returns home. In The Ambassadors the contrast between American and European culture is again the major theme.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is an insightful look at childhood, and how some children are coerced into being.adults while others, like Tom, resist with all their childly powers. This can be seen as a kind of
intercultural conflict.
The Prince and the Pauper highlights the differences between social classes in sixteenth century England. Twain argues that such differences are merely accidental, and superficial. Underneath, the prince and the pauper are identical in their human essence.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, besides being a classic of American literature, is a classic statement of the process whereby a boy becomes a man through wrestling with moral dilemmas and deciding to do what he feels it is right to do. In doing so, Huck recognizes the essential dignity and sincerity of the Negro slave Jim, and can relate to him as one man to another. He sees that all men have an inherent dignity and spirituality, despite the prevailing cultural prejudice of his time.
The futuristic novel Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy is very revealing both of the excesses of the ̀gilded age' with its widespread poverty and social misery, and of the optimistic, scientific culture of the time. It envisions a utopian, beaureaucratic, scientific, socialistic society of the year 2000 from the vantage point of the year 1888. Now in 1992, it seems hardly desirable, even if it were possible.
In a book published the following year, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's
Court, Mark Twain actually goes backward in time sending his hero back to the
time of King Arthur. In it Twain paints a clear contrast between his scientific knowledge and their ignorant superstition. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court satirizes both the medieval and modern mind.
The story of Madame Butterfly by John Luther Long caught the eye of David Belasco, who turned it into a play, which in turn charmed Puccini, who made it into the famous opera of the same name. Set in Nagasaki, it is likely a composite of what Long had heard about the common practice at the time of foreign sailors taking a ̀wife' for a month or so, and then leaving to go out to sea again, perhaps, never to return. It was one of the various kinds of contact between the sexes and races in Nagasaki in those years. Because of similarities in plot and the spelling of words, Long probably borrowed heavily from the story of Madame Chrysanthemum by Pierre Loti, published in Europe a few years before, and enjoying great popularity there.
As the 20th Century was dawning, Jack London wrote a story entitled In a Far Country, which theme is the tragic consequences of failure to adapt to a new and harsh physical environment‑‑the Arctic. His introductory paragraph defines the theme of his story, and could equally as well apply to the rigors of adaptation to a new and different cultural environment:
When a man journeys into a far country, he must be prepared to forget many of the things he has learned, and to acquire such customs as are inherent with existence in the new Iand; he must abandon the old ideals and the old gods, and oftentimes he must reverse the very codes by which his conduct has hitherto been shaped. To those who have the protean faculty of adaptability, the novelty of such change may even be a source of pleasure; but to those who happen to be hardened to the ruts in which they were created, the pressure of the altesed environment is unbearable, and they chafe in body and in spirit under the new restrictions which they do not understand. This chafing is bound to act and react, producing divers eviis and leading to various misfortunes. It were better for the man who cannot fit himself to the new groove to return to his own country; if he delay too long, he will surely die.
This is one of the best statements that has ever been made about the potential demands of cultural adaptation and the potential conseqences of failure to adapt.
It also shows how closely linked culture and its physical milieu may be:every environment makes demands and places limits on the human beings that inhabit it, and culture must evolve within that context.
In the second paragraph, London emphasizes that if a person is to adapt to a
new environment, the challenge lies in changing one's mental attitu'de toward it,
and especially toward his fellow human beings. In a culture, it is not the visible,
34 William McOmie
material objects and customs that is important, but the underlying, invisible assumptions, premises, beliefs, and values.
In 1904, Leo Tolstoy published another short novel set in the Caucasus, Hadji' Murad, which contrasts Russian culture with that of the Caucasian tribal culture to which Hadji Murad belongs. It is interesting not only for the differences, but also the similarities, especially with that of the Russian soldiers, and the way in which Hadji Murad maintains a non‑judgemental attitude toward a certain aspect of Russian culture, despite his Russian hosts repeatedly asking him to pass judgement. This attitude might have helped him to make a successful adaptaion to life in Moscow or St. Petersburg, had not fate and his enemies conspired against him.
Willa Cather's My Antonia is a romantic, poetic evocation of pioneer life in Nebraska in the 1890's. It tells the story of Antonia, the eldest daughter of a family of Bohemian immigrants, whose tremendous vitality and capacity for hard work overcome family tragedy, the hardships of land and climate and conjugal abandonment. By way of telling the story, Cather contrasts Antonia and her Catholic family of ̀foreigners' with Jim Burden and his Protestant, American family. Later in the story, Antonia and other country girls are contrasted with the townspeople, to the latter's disadvantage. Besides its beautiful, evocative prose, it contains much intercultural material for the serious literary researcher.
The literary output of the English writer E.M. Forster rivals that of Henry James and Joseph Conrad for its attention to intercultural themes. AII his novels involve contrasts between cultural opposites. In that respect, his A Passage to India is foremost among his works. It offers a look at India during its last decades as a British colony, and the way in which the British colonials attempt to live within their own artificial, expatriate environment, excluding the Indians from admission to it. Then into their cozy world comes Adela Quested and her saintly mother Mrs. Moore. Adela's desire to break out of this cozy, confining little English world and 'see the real India' sets in motion a train of events which lead to strident intercultural coflict between English and Indians, and among the English themselves. The problems and difficulties inherent in intercultural relations are clearly delineated. In the end, the possibility of real understanding between English and Indians is still in doubt. The novel is a real work of art, however, and should not be read only for its intercultural content.
If children and adults represent two contrasting cultures then The Little Prince
by Antoine. St. Exupery constitutes one of the best and most profound descriptions
of the differences between them. Culture defines what is important for people, and
in this story we can clearly see that one thing that separates adults from children
is what they ascribe importance to. It is a wise book, full of delicate feelings and
astute observations, and steeped in the mystery of life.
The Pearl by John Steinbeck is a poignant story about the aspirations of poor people for a better life and the way in which rich people and society as a whole conspire to deny it to them. It is a story of how the ̀culture of poverty' drove a poor man to fight for a better life for his son when the social system created by and for the rich was stacked against him, and how that fight led to tragedy for his family. It is the culture of wealth and greed on the one hand versus the culture of poverty and need on the other. Of course, it is only a fable.
East meets West, Americans meet Japanese in James Michener's Sayonara and both are irreparably changed as a result. It is a story of how an American misfit finds happiness, Iove and a stable family life in Japan, until the bigotry of other Americans destroys it all for him, and how an American hero finds his prejudices washed away by love for a Japanese woman. It gives an interesting and useful perspective on how cultural attitudes may change over the course of two
generatlons.
In The Lilies of the Field by William Barrett we are offered several different cultural and personal contrasts involving race, religious faith, and personal commitmen･t. In the story a black American man becomes involved with a group of nuns, refugees from Easeern Europe, in the building of a chapel on their land somewhere in the western deserts of America. It is a very unlikely combination and at first the black man, Homer Smith, refutes the Mother Superior's conviction that God has sent him to her to build her chapel and insists that the pay him for the work that he has done. He is on his way to leaving, when the prejudice he encounters from a white contractor spurs him into accepting the challenge of building the chapel. Finally, after many trials and tribulations, and with the help of the local Mexican‑American population, and even the prejudiced contractor, the chapel is completed, and Homer is canonized. The fact that Homer's skin color does not matter to the nuns, nor that he is a Baptist, while they are Catholic and that thay entrust him with the responsibility of building a chapel and being his own boss undoubtedly help to accunt for the success of this unlikely alliance. It is another literary work whose plot is really built on the intercultural and interpersonal contrasts between its major characters.
The book an'd the film Being There both by Jerzy Kozinski, I have found to be
very relevant to problems of intercultural communication and interaction. The
central character, Chance, is a very simple‑minded man who has lived all his life
within the confines of single house and garden in Manhattan (Washington, D.C.)
where he spent all his time either gardening or watching television. Consequently,
those are the only two things that he knows. He never learned how to read or
write, and has no direct knowledge of the outside world, and no direct experience
of it. When he is, at last, forced to leave his home and go out into the world, he
is like an innocent child, discovering it for the first time with a child‑like mind.
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He is luckily taken to the home of a rich and powerful, but old and seriously ill, businessman, whose young wife falls in love with him. He becomes, by a mistake in hearing, not merely Chance, the gardener, but Chauncey Gardiner, and quickly becomes an ̀advisor' to the President and national celebrity by virtue of his appearing on television and receiving very favorable reviews. His simple ideas about gardening are meant literally, but interpeted by others figuratively, as a sort of profound, but ̀down‑‑to‑earth philosophy'. This contrast between literal and figurative meaning, between fact and metaphor is the central core around which the whole plot revolves.
The first time Chance meets Rand he uses ̀garden' literally:
"It is not easy, sir," he said, "to obtain a suitable place, a garden, in which one can work without interference and grow with the seasons..."
Rand is impressed by his use of ̀metaphor:'
..."A gardener! Isn't that the perfect description of what a real businessman is?..." "what an excellent metaphor! A productive businessman is indeed a laborer in his own vineyard!"
Rand is so impressed, in fact, that he begins to use his own metaphors to describe a businessman. Chance does not really understand Rand's use of metaphor, but skillfully pretends to:
"The garden I left was such a place, and I know I won't ever find anything as wonderful. ...and all that's left is the room upstairs."
Rand interprets his words in figurative sense and responds kindly:
' "You're young, Chauncey;why do you have to talk about 'the room upstairs'? That's where I'm going soon, not you....for me all that's left is the room upstairs."
The fact that Chance failed to understand the figurative meaning of Rand's words is then commented upon:
Chance wondered what Rand meant by saying that he'd soon be in the room upstairs. How could he move in up there while he, Chance, was still in the house?
Rand likes Chance because he can speak to him frankly. He thinks that he is direct, quick to grasp ideas, and plain‑speaking. He invites him to meet the President together with him on the following day. When the President asks him about the ̀bad season on The Street,' Chance responds in the only way he knows how:
"In a garden," he said, "growth has its season. There are spring and summer, but there are also fall and winter, And then spring and summer again. As long as the roots are not severed, all is well and all will be well."
Interpreting his remarks in a figurative way, and equating ̀garden' with the
national economy, the President was pleased with Chance's remarks. He remarks to Rand that people should accept the ̀seasons of our economy' as they do ̀the inevitable seasans of nature.' When the President mentions Chance's name (Chauncey Gardiner) after his speech to Rand's Financial Institute, the news media pick up on it and he becomes a national celebrity overnight.
So what does ali this have to do with intercultural studies? Imagine a whole society of ̀literalists' like Chance. Whenever they come into contact with a society of ̀figurativists', like our own, misunderstanding and confusion would be sure to result. In fact, cultures do differ from one another in the degree of literalness or figurativeness they use when they speak in different contexts, and this can create reai problems in interpretation. A recent example can illustrate. Before the Gulf war began, Saddamm Hussein was using very graphic, gory language to describe what would happen to the any troops that dared to attack Kuwait or Iraq. The Americans (and probably others as well) tended to interpret them more literally, and that helped to inflame feeling against Saddamm. But in the Arabic tradition such rhetorical excesses are common, and expected, and not taken literally.
Another example is the widespread use of the word ̀gaijin' in Japan to mean
̀foreigner.' Japanese people have until very recently used it without thinking to mean a ̀ white foreigner', while Americans, and others, tend not to Iike the word because they interpret it in its literal sense of ̀outside person.' The question of how literally to interpret someone's words is very common in interpersonal and intercultural communication. Thus, Being There, is highly relevant to an understanding of the intercultural process.
Conclusion
In this paper, I have redefined culture, and intercultural in such a way as to allow the inclusion of many more works of literature than have heretofore been recognized as intercultural in content. As an aid to understanding human nature and human culture, and the interaction of human beings with each other and their environrnent, imaginative literature has an important role to play. Sometimes true stories sound too much like fiction, and are not believed. And sometimes it is in fiction that we find the clearest ring of truth. Does Art follow Life, or does Life imitate Art? Or does it work both ways? We can often find what seems like a true reflection of ourselves in some work of literature, and finding it there, shape ourselves more closely to its image. Literature can tell us more than we may want to know about ourselves, but perhaps less than we need to know. It can show us new and old aspects of ourselves that may offend more than they flatter.
The function of literature is to convey the experience of other people, other
cultures, other eras, and other worlds to the mind of the reader, where it may
work its magic, or fail to, as the case may be. Literature thus has tremendous
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potential to expand the mental horizons of its readers, and educate in the best sense. But to the extent it becomes merely didactic, it loses its artistic power to
move the mind of its reader. Art must not be sacrificed on the altar of Propaganda.
To look at works of literature through the lens of ̀interculturalness.' may distort them. Yet because of the breadth of definition I have given to it, I have reason to hope that those which merit artistic distinction will still be seen in that light.
All human cultures are really contained in the individual self. Like any fragment of a hologram, it contains the whole image, so the individual human mind can potentially create any human culture. Most of us need to travel to discover that potential. A few can travel outside their own self while remaining where they are.
And works of literature can act as the stimulus and guide to such a journey.
Chronological chart of intercultural works (Fiction)
1298‑99 The Travels Marco Polo
1387‑1400 The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer
1516 Utopia Thomas More
1590? The Jew of Malta Christopher Marlowe 1590‑91 Titus Andronicus William Shakespeare
1592 Two Gentlemen of Verona e 4 1596 The Merchant of Venice e o 1607 Antony and Cleopatra ij e
l608 Timon of Athens e 4
1609 The Winter's Tale e ij
1726 Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift
1740 Pamela:or, Virtue Rewarded Samuel Richardson
1747‑48 Clarissa:or, the History e e
of a Young Lady
1760‑61 Citizen of the World Oliver Goldsmith
1764 The Traveller o e
1768 Sentimental Journey Laurence Stern
Through France and Italy
1793 The Emigrants Gilbert lmlay
1812‑18 Childe Harold's Pilgsimage George Gordon, Lord Byron
1818 Heart of Midlothian Walter Scott
1818
1819‑20
1824 1826 (1823‑41 1835 1845‑46 1846 1847 1849 1852 1852‑63 1855 1855 1860 1865
1869 1876 1877 1879 1879‑80 1881 1882 1885 1885 1888 1889
1894 1898 1900 1900 1902 1903 1904 1905 1907
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