Non-Western Literature – Assignment 1.
Non-Western literature studies expand our understanding of the world around us. Through this course, you have learned about the experiences of people from other cultures and the effects of colonialism and westernization on non-Western cultures. For this assignment, write 2,000 to 2,500-word essay that responds to one of the prompts below.
Prompt
During this course, we examined Western ideas about non-Western cultures and non-Western perceptions of Western culture. The following prompts will reflect how these observations are reflected in literature.
1. Select a piece of literature written by a non-Western author and one that was written by a Western author that contains at least one non-Western character from the same country as the first literary work.
-Summarize and analyze the characterization techniques used in each piece. Discuss how each of the authors describes non-Western characters.
-Describe the challenges of accurately depicting characters of another culture.
2. Analyze and compare ‘Chike’s School Days’ and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. –
Discuss the effects of westernization on the characters and provide specific examples from each text that exemplify the author’s tone about colonialization.
-Examine the impact of Western influences on the culture and traditions of Nigeria. Evaluate efforts to preserve Nigerian cultural heritage.
