Synthesis Essay

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Civilization Vs Nature discussed by Gary Alan Fine and Alison Uminger

The 21st-century novel American Girls, written by Alison Uminger, and the journal namely The Manson Family: The Folklore Traditions of a Small Group written by Gary Alan Fine, both the literary pieces have one thing in common and that is the aspect of civilization and nature. Both authors have put to light on the importance of nature and civilization in human life. The novel American Girls discusses the life of two American girls that live a miserable life. The consequences they have to face and all the effort they put to get themselves out of their circumstances, the novel discusses them all, however along with all this drama going on the cultural aspect and the element of civilization is can also be seen in the closely woven plot. The journal, on the other hand, is written by Gary Alan. He discusses the creation of folklore and particularly he has chosen the theme of The Manson Family and their folklore. He discusses the cultural factor and the forces of nature that are involved in shaping the lives of humans, belonging to a specific group, and how their lives generate the folklore.

The story American Girls is narrated by the protagonist named Anna who is just fifteen. She takes the wallet of her step-mom and runs away from the house to LA where her sister lives. The culture of America in the 21st century is brought to the light by the author. She talks s about a girl that belongs to a broken family and his own insecurities because of the circumstances she faces. Consequently, she ends up in LA where she thinks that her sister is having a very calm, glittery and charming life. However, the reality proves itself to be totally opposite of her beliefs. The culture of LA is not that glittery and fancy as the fifteen years old thought it would be. Ana wanted an escape from the bitter world and the cruel reality she was living in but lesser she knows is that the world is not the same as in Hollywood. As the author tells that the actual danger wasn’t viciousness like one watches on the television, accidental and thrilling—the actual threat was that of vampire kind, the kind that you summoned in as it told you all you seek to hear. Charles Manson would never be Charles Manson if there hadn’t been girls by the dozen, ready and damaged by the quiet brutality behind those carefully locked doors (BookBrowse).

The American culture that she lives in also prevails in LA, and the nature of the human beings and the society cannot be altered. The threats she faces in her hometown chase her all the way to LA too, and make her realize that nature works this way. Her sister contrary to her expectations is living a miserable life too and is not happy to have her in LA, because she is barely surviving the life in LA. The culture of LA welcomes her but not the way she wants. Gary in his journal discusses the culture and the life of the Mason family. He states that culture is an immigrant property of group interaction. When folks come across, they characteristically commence building a mutual culture by probing into the personal biographical information for example names and other things which can be referred to afterward or by trying to shape on shared data or benefits. The community that possesses a culture attracts a fundamental border and do not let anybody inside simply. If anyone passes in the community he remains in the background until he totally accepts the norms and the rules of that culture (Alan).

The Manson Family that the writer discusses also created their own boundaries and that was of critical importance. They followed their own cultural norms and values that were formed by the members and everyone was bound by them. The writer has used extensive elements to discuss the culture and cultural norms of the Manson Family.

The girl Ana from the novel American Girls is not naïve rather she is too young and immature to understand the harsh circumstances that the time has thrown her into. The girl feels like the threats and the danger that she feels to her freedom in Atlanta will end up after entering the fancy world of Hollywood. She lives in a world of illusion that is not even near to the reality of life. However, this does not mean that she is the kind of girl that would run after fame or the one who wants to show her charms to the guys. She would rather happily beat a table full of movie stars ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"S85tVHbw","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(BookBrowse)","plainCitation":"(BookBrowse)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":275,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/Tqq4tlqy/items/TIUKB3PB"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/Tqq4tlqy/items/TIUKB3PB"],"itemData":{"id":275,"type":"webpage","title":"Summary and reviews of American Girls by Alison Umminger","container-title":"BookBrowse.com","abstract":"She was looking for a place to land.","URL":"https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/11503/american-girls","language":"en","author":[{"family":"BookBrowse","given":""}],"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",4,22]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (BookBrowse).

Ana is not very much like the other American girls of her age, she did not elope from the house because she wanted to be s superstar or something rather it was her very own life and the situations that she was stuck in. The novel is all about the social pressure that the teens face and that prevent them from living their lives in a meaningful manner. Ana's life becomes a mess because of her thoughtless decision of going to LA and then a series of bad events occur there with her. Though her life is not as calm as a normal person wishes but the way out that she found out is not at all the solution. The novel gives insight into the virtual reality that the individuals especially the kids live in these. They are in control of the fake world of social media, and the pressure of the culture to live up to the standards of the life of social media is dragging them into the mental pressures that lead them to do what Ana does in the novel. The parallels between Anna’s feelings of insufficiency and peer pressures and the instances of notoriety in Anna’s current life, matched to akin themes in Anna’s research about the Manson girls and Sharon Tate, may be particularly enlightening and attention-grabbing to teen readers. Rich minor characters are shrewd epitomes that harken back to noteworthy figures from the Manson period, without any of them feeling cliché or superficial. Gary talks about the social norms and the culture of the family that they manifested towards the children of the family. They treated their kids as kings. He states in the journal that the children were privileged in the family Manson thought of their children to be kings or gods because of their lack of restrictions from community limitations (Alan).

The author Uminger and the writer of the journal Gary both probed into the society that their chosen characters were living in. The important aspect of both the literary pieces is that both aim at finding the social aspects that lead the characters to where they were. Both writers probe into the social fractures that shape the personality of the individuals and the group on the whole.

Works Cited

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY BookBrowse. “Summary and Reviews of American Girls by Alison Umminger.” BookBrowse.Com, https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/11503/american-girls. Accessed 22 Apr. 2019.

Alan, Gary. "The Manson Family: The Folklore Traditions Of A Small Group". Journal Of The Folklore Institute, No. 1 (Jan. - Apr. 1982), Vol. 19, 2019, pp. pp. 47-60., https://www.jstor.org/stable/3813962. Accessed 15 Apr 2019.