Personal Statement and Body Ritual among the Nacirema

For as long as I can remember, I have always been captivated by the study of literature and the processes that an author takes in crafting and perfecting a quality text.  It is for this reason, along with my love of writing, that the study of the English language has always been one of my favorite and most fulfilling areas of investigation throughout grade school.  In coming to Temple as a political science major I hope to continue to foster my love of reading paired with my high level of interest in the American political system and government.  I feel as if I am ready for this challenge because I prepared myself in high school with a competitive roll of classes that have taught me a great deal about the proper skills and work ethic that are necessary to succeed at a higher level of education.  It is my ultimate goal to attend a world-class law school after my undergraduate training and to become the senior partner of a successful law firm.  If I am able to keep my priorities in line and focus on maximizing my own potential, I see no reason why I can not achieve the ambitious goals I have set out for myself.  The values of hard work and a desire for excellence have always been instilled upon me, and that is the primary reason why I am excited for the experiences and challenges that college will afford.  In this course, I merely hope to continue to expand upon my passion for literature and the critical analysis of the texts in which we study in class.  I hope to become better at drawing parallels between real life situations and the events that are taking place in these novels, and I am also excited to research and discover the true identity of literary Philadelphia.  I come from a suburb of the city of Reading, Pennsylvania called Mohnton, and my home is located in a very rural location.  It has been quite exciting to see the diversity and business of a large city even in the short amount of time I have been in Philadelphia so far.  I truly believe this exposure to a completely different culture could prove to be as valuable as the education I am receiving at Temple, and I am very excited and anxious to see what this school year has in store for me. 

            Horace Miner’s Body Ritual among the Nacirema drew my interest from the start, but it was only towards the end of the short story that I began to understand the author’s mystical and cryptic messages about human nature and the biases of the mind that the text was meant to demonstrate.  I can’t lie and say that I caught on to Miner’s enigmatic portrait of American society from the onset of the text, but I can say that I fell in to the exact description that he was trying to portray of a judgmental American.  As soon as I began reading the story I couldn’t help thinking about how weird the customs of this tribe were with all of the painful oral ceremonies and procedures and an incessant obsession with body image and an overall sense of normalcy.  I was immediately casting judgment upon this group of people that I had never heard of before, and it was only very late in the story that I began piecing together Miner’s subtle hints at the human nature of a 20^th century society.  After this revelation I was able to see that the author wrote this story with the intention of demonstrating the bias of humans towards a society and conditions that seem foreign and odd, even though they may parallel something familiar.  This story showed me that in order to truly understand a different culture people must immerse themselves in the facts surrounding that society so they may form a sound and complete portrait of those who are different than them.  I believe this short text will help me to avoid forming an unfair prejudice towards those who are different than me because the remembrance of this text will force me to look at the flaws within my own society before casting judgment upon a people that I do not have full or accurate knowledge to place judgment upon.  When I began to recognize Miner’s code names for the bathroom, hospitals, bedrooms, and other places within the Nacirema society, it made me understand how some people may view the daily habits of 21^st century Americans as outlandish as well.  Just because something may seem odd and out of the normal to one person does not mean that it is necessarily a preposterous concept.  The world at large is diverse and ever changing, and the customs of one culture surely may not match or even be similar to those of a people across the ocean.  Miner writes with the intention of promoting a greater sense of acceptance while also striving to expose the evil nature of a subjective and unaccepting mind.  While this story exposes serious flaws in humanity in a humorous and satirical fashion, its message is sound and clear cut.  Miner calls for the reader to gather the necessary knowledge and facts before allowing the malevolent grasp of ethnocentrism to enter one’s mind and shape his opinions.  It is my hope that this story will help me to read, learn, and live in a more open and accepting manner, and I am thankful this was the first text we studied this semester.  I am a firm believer in the virtue that one must acknowledge his flaws before having any ability to correct them, and I believe Horace Miner’s short story can help a broad audience to view American society in a light that will allow our population to be more receptive of the hand of diversity that is shaping a 21^st century world.