What an American Should Look Like
American is a mixed country. There are many people from different culture live together in this country. Different culture makes people think differently, and act differently. We should respect everyone’s actions whatever the way they choose. Sometimes, it’s true that there are few ways that people act are unacceptable. Still, we can’t force them to change their own way in order to make us feel comfortable.
Jessica Mitford talks about the way American people treat a people’s dead body in her essay, “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain.” She tells a lot of details how a dead body is processing to a beautiful “live doll” and how people act during funeral. In the last paragraph, she use word “doll” to describe how a dead body has been. It is clear that she doesn’t like the way a dead body is treaded.
What I think is there are many ways people can deal with death. Body wax is just one of the ways. In some American culture, people burn up the dead body. And what they keep is bone powder. If Mitford doesn’t like any of these ways, she could make her own and carry forward of it. We won’t care.
Horace Miner in his essay, “Body Ritual among the Nacirema,” describe a group of North American. Their actions are strange and hard to be understood; they care their mouth so much, and make hole on the mouth. When they are doing that, there is a special ritual activity. Miner thinks with our modern acknowledge, people could deal with some difficulties easily, but as early men, they don’t have ability to solve it. We can’t lower them down because of our high technology. We should understand them as well as our social.