My two different reflections on Nacirema story.

My reflections on Nacirema

'The pen is mightier than the sword.' This is a famous quote from Edward Bulwer-Lytton. He emphasized the strength of writings, which has changed the world many times over the history. This quote has been an ongoing debate topic, and many people have argued back and forth about the motion. In Nacirema story, the writer has proved this quote again by criticizing American society very sharply. In this essay, I will write about my first expression when I got before knowing the true meaning of Nacirema. I will deeply analyze why I thought this way and how my ideas were developed. Then, I will write about my reflection after knowing what Nacirema meant.


First, I read the story without knowing what Nacirema was. I was kind of suspicious about the location, religion and customs of Nacirema. It had a lot of similarity with the country America. However, I just kept thinking only about Nacirema without carefully thinking about the relation with America. Actually, the term 'Nacirema' kind of sounded like a name of Mexican tribe to me. Therefore, I wrote about what I just thought initially. I started thinking about religion since it had a strong relationship with all the rituals in Nacirema. I began throwing questions about religion. Mankind has been so obsessed with religion and their believes throughout the whole history. So I became very curious about this fact. Why are they so obsessed with their religion? There has been numerous wars and disasters caused by the conflicts between the religion. Is having a religion so important to them that they almost sacrifice their lives just for the religion? Even though I am a Christian, I had these questions. Then, I thought about my personal experience. I once had an incident when I maintained my mental stability through my religion. My mom had been very sick in my last summer vacation. She even had to go through a big surgery. This was a horrible news to me and I got confused when preparing for the KMLA admission. I also thought of giving up my high school admissions. However, at that moment, I prayed and I got back on track. My mom's surgery succeeded, and I also prepared well for KMLA. I remembered this story and partially realized the reason people believe in their religion. They get relaxed, remain calm and get prepared for anything that is coming to them. This was the first thought that I had in mind, and I thought deeply and critically about what 'religion' is.


Then, I realized what this writing was meant to be. I realized that the word 'Nacirema' is the direct opposite of 'American.' I was shocked, and my brain stopped working for a very short moment. Then, I found this story very interesting. I liked how this story was organized in a clear way to serve its purpose, which was criticizing Americans in 1950s. This story compared Americans to a native tribe, with almost no civilizations. It mentioned that Nacirema show how extreme human beings can be. From this part, it was easy for me to recognize the author's critical viewpoint. Also, Miner, the author of Nacirema mentioned American society with a one that has strict hierarchy. Nacirema had the medicine man at the top of the hierarchy. This symbolized the doctors in American society, which also spots the top of social hierarchy. Like this, Nacirema criticized Americans and their society by imitating it in a negative tone.

              

 In conclusion, reflection on a writing differs on each person. Also, it changes depending on a background knowledge of one. In this case, my impressions on the essay completely differed between before knowing the relationship between Nacirema and Americans and after knowing it. Reading the story and writing a reflection about it multiple times was a good experience to realize the fact that a reflection on an essay can change based on the information or background knowledge one has.