Cultural encounters in literary works referring to William Trevor's "The Distant Past"

 

Introduction

Cultural encounters refer to the ways in which people and cultures interact and how cultures can be transformed by these ways. Different cultures may overlap and lead to conflicts. Cultural encounters are mainly interactions that occur between two groups or two peoples who use different social systems and this may cause sensitivity in issues related to religion, gender, race and social classes or any other relevant issues. The current paper is discussing ho cultural encounters are dealt with in literary works referring to William Trevor's "The Distant Past" and how the differences between different groups of people based on cultural differences can lead to different conflicts. (Schirmer, 2014)

Discussion       

Cultural encounter explains to people how past and modern different life styles can represent social customs as in "The Distant Past" William Trevor sheds light on cultural encounter between two categories of people who are the Catholics and the Protestants, the rural and the urban and the new generations and past generations. These differences based on cultural encounter cause much conflict in the story. "The Distant Past" discusses the Middleton's life and how the sister and the brother who come from an old family of the Protestant Irish group can live in the Catholic Area of Ireland. The story presents cultural encounter as how Catholic and Protestant can face each other as people living in one area where one culture dominates and how this can lead to cruelty and passive feelings and attitudes towards each other. The story also explains how people can cope with new ideas in a new society with different culture as the family kept their religion in spite of the cruel feelings. The story shows how this can affect the human from different areas such as external and internal ones referring to the society and nature as the experience of the Middletons related to their values of issues such as the past and the religion and that most conflicts ere external and some were internal referring to people's feelings and attitudes towards others. The story shows how the conflicts can fade as the Middletons were able to cope with local people as when violence grown is Northern Island, the Middletons face conflicts of ostracism from people who were formerly treating them as friends which tells how far the past affects the present. (Allen, 1993)

The author of the story is aware of the cultural encounter theme which can be clear in his way in presenting his characters as the names of the protagonists can explain that the characters are trying to avoid stressing their religion origin, this can be in this example:

"The Middletons of Carraveagh the family had once been known as, but now the brother and sister were just the Middletons.'' Page 4.

The author origins is Ireland which shows that he understands the issue well and discusses based on reality, he explains how society is having many barriers that stand against communication between peoples from two different cultures as the protagonists come Britain and are trying to work hard to live in Ireland. The author explains that the sibling found that their inheritance had reduced than the limit they had expected and their blame was on the woman and the new Irish government too. They were able to socialize with local people, sell their eggs and have good relationships with those folks but at the same time they couldn't have a good future in this place and when they grow up, they remained loyal to Britain and old hostilities with the local people declined in spite of all the difficulties they suffer, this shows that the author is well aware of the culture encounters in his own country. (Cengage Learning, 2020)

The main characters in the story who are the Middletons are aware of the cultural encounter and this is clear in the way they deal with people in the new society as they were in need to be marked by their cultural habits and features so they engaged in the society and people in the market and they tried to make friends and they were aware that this is very difficult but they needed to have respect in the society which they maintained. The characters had loyalty to the past as they lived in Carraveagh long time and their loyalty to the past is embodied in their arrogance towards the history and that they think the new regime will end but they were proved wrong by time. The father's mortgaged their house as he had a relation with the Catholic Dublin woman and spent the money on her and this made them blame her for the decline they had in life and here appears their feelings towards such culture and how it had passive effects on them. (Mortimer, 1984)

The Friday's visit to town highlights the theme of cultural encounter in “The Distant Past" These visits were for purchasing goods or for praying and they represent the town's changes in many areas such as the hotel, tourism and the grocery store and they also reflect the changes of people such as the desire of retirement the butcher has as he gets old and this also appears in the death of the dog of the Middleton after it grew old too as this death represents how friendship change throughout time and they were considered absurd, this can be clear in some points from the past such as the town youngsters and the new Bradshaw they considered silly, they also showed the differences between the old and modern generations and that the behaviors acceptance differs from time to time and this is apparent in the attitude of the Middleton in removing the symbols that refer to their expectations and temperament. (Cengage Learning, 2020)

The story contrasts tend to show cultural encounter such as focusing on differences between the past and present that show how new cultures emerged and that there are only certain times when cultural issues can be revived and that people change from having hostility against each other to be friends as time can change these feelings and attitudes which reflects the human nature and how it helps in making cultural encounter changes and make things change. Contrast is also apparent in the feelings the protagonist have towards others and themselves and the degree of tolerance they have, for example, this can be clear when Mr. Healy spoke about blowing up of the sub-post offices event and the reply of the Middleton was that they didn't want anything to be done with this event. (Allen, 1993)

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is important to refer to the importance of realizing the cultural encounters that cause differences in people's feelings and how they can change throughout time, the story of William Trevor "Distant of the Past" shows how cultural encounter can be apparent in the way people live and think of others' religion and characteristics based on social life and other measurements and that time can also be a factor of change of such cultural encounter.    

 

 

  

References

1.      Allen, B. (1993). 'Review: William Trevor and Other People's Worlds.' https://www.jstor.org/stable/27546670

2.      Cengage Learning. (2020). 'A Study Guide for William Trevor's "The Distant Past". Gale.

3.      Mortimer, M. (1984). 'The Short Stories of William Trevor.' https://www.persee.fr/doc/irlan_0183-973x_1984_num_9_1_2732

4.      Schirmer, G. (2014). 'William Trevor (Routledge Revivals): A Study of His Fiction.' Routledge.