Cultural Diversity

Lexi Crow

Period: 4

In a culturally diverse country such as America, there could be people who have immigrated here but also face a degree of homesickness. This concept of juggling two different cultures and ‘homes’ is identified in Salman Rushdie’s novel East, West. He bases his novel around a family who tries to settle into a new country, but they face adversity in identifying themselves as British.

Cassandra Clarke seems to be a student writing a literary analysis for a professor or teacher of some sort on Salman Rushdie's novel link to analysis . Her writing is very effective in explaining the characters troubles and trials in Rushdie’s novel without just summarizing the entire work too much (especially compared to some other essays). She kept a fair balance of explaining the original text, but kept away from going on and on about only Rushdie’s published work.  Her paragraphs flow smoothly in order of each child and their individual troubles becoming a British citizen while still feeling close to their homeland in India. Despite her generally solid writing style, her ‘concrete’ details are somewhat weak, since they don’t use very substantial parts of the novel. It seems as though her concrete details could’ve been taken out of any old page and been applied to what she was trying to say in her essay. However, because of her narration and opinions, her quotes from the novel serve a purpose still in her analysis. She didn’t aim to so much persuade her audience; rather she just made her opinion known and broke down the novel in a straightforward way. She makes it known that Rushdie's novel was about a family moving from India to Britain, a hard transition for children and teens. Clarke’s analysis makes sure the audience realizes the hardships of identifying with two different cultures, keeping their homeland culture in their hearts but learning and growing to love a new one.

Clarke’s writing is overall appropriate for an essay that is to be turned in for academic purposes, and it isn’t ‘over-written’ to the point that a high school student couldn’t understand her main points and views. Her writing style is simple yet effective and formal enough. She comes across as a knowledgeable writer, which gives her more credit as a writer. Clarke’s structure in her essay includes well-organized essays, very standard to high school students who ‘group’ ideas into paragraphs, and this method does make reading the essay more manageable. She doesn’t follow Schaffer formatting per se, but she does include concrete material from the novel, and her own views and opinions regarding those details. She does leave out the ‘for example, in addition’ Schaffer component, which ultimately weakens an essay more so than it strengthens it.

Cassandra Clarke effectively analyzed East, West. Her ideas were clearly thought out and they were well organized. She addressed her audience well, and overall came across reputable. Her essay, which in my opinion was a strong one, had very few weaknesses.