Browsing by Author "SEDDIKI Rabia"

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    Culture Shock in Barbary Captivity Narratives: Royal Tyler (1797), John Foss (1798), Maria Martin (1807) and James Leander Cathcart (1899)
    (Université Mouloud Mammeri Tizi-Ouzou, 2015-06) SEDDIKI Rabia
    My research paper intends to study the culture shock in Barbary captivity narratives: Royal Tyler’s The Algerine Captive (1797), John Foss’ Journal of Captivity and Sufferings (1798), Maria Martin’s History of Captivity and Sufferings (1807), and James Leander Cathcart’s The Captives, Eleven years a Prisoner in Algiers (1899).This paper shows that the narratives are the experiences of a passage, the crossing of a boundary that allows for an encounter with otherness to take place. Addressed to their home culture, the narratives deal with the captives’ cultural shock upon their first encounter with different and strange culture, in uncomfortable situations interacting with people who are not born nor bred Americans. Being cut out from their culture, the captives were at a complete loss since their host culture involved unusual norms of cultural understanding such as, religion, food, clothing, gender roles, customs and traditions. Therefore, my research paper shows the circumstances and the reasons behind the captives’ disorientation. Moreover, it explains how the captives endure and depict their life within Barbary through highlighting the distinct features between America and Algiers through an ethnocentric standpoint.