Culture and Family Essay Example
Family and Culture is essential to one's identity. It defines who you are as a person. Everyone in the whole world has a culture and family to belong to, you feel loved and safe when you’re with your family. The novel ‘The First Third’ by Will Kostaskis presents family and culture in a unique way by showing the life of the main character who is a Greek and has to mend his family. Without an identity of culture and family, we won’t know which type of person or who we are as a person.
The ‘First Third’ Will Kostakis highlights the value of family, by presenting readers with a story about how hard it can be if your siblings have distanced from one another. His younger brother Peter and Bill were close brothers, but as he grew older he drifted apart from Bill. With their grandma in hospital, Peter shows love to his grandma only. “Peter’s concrete bravado was gone,and I could see it made my grandmother so happy”, presenting simile on page 68. He describes Peter’s bravery as concrete, but when his braveness to his grandmother is soft and that made her happy. Peter’s relationship with Bill is far off different with his grandmother. Family can be defined as people who we grow close to and can’t separate from, they are in your blood.
Moverover, bucket list is a list of activities that a person wants to do.In the novel ‘The First Third’, the main character Bill Tsolakis is surrounded by his loving Greek Family. Before his grandmother Yia Yia passes away she hands him a sliver of parchment paper, written with Hayley’s handwriting is Yia Yia’s bucket list. The bucket list shows a list of things his grandma wanted him to do. This speech is shown “I have to be the glue that holds the family together” on page 75.This speech is highlighting metaphor to compare himself to a glue. It portrays that he is the human glue to stick his family together. It is apparent that Bill’s grandma really wants her family to stick together as one.
On the other hand, culture, Bill Tsolakis is a proud Greek. Greek is a lovely culture and is very important to his family. There are many greek stereotypes such as big on food, many extended family, every single family member is there for you, very religious Greek Orthodox. Culture and family tie together as one. Greeks have a known ‘The Circle of Greek Life’. His Yia Yia tells him an important message for him to remember and pass down to his family, “You spend the first third getting embarrassed by your family. When they pass, you spend the next part trying to make a family like the one you had. And when you’re old, you just embarrass whatever family you made”, page 217. This speech indicates emotive language because it shows the way you’re family and you treat each other.
Culture is very important because it represents who you are and everyone in your culture can be represented. In addition, another quote from the novel that shows culture is when Yia Yia teaches Bill the difference between Moussaka and Lasagna, which are two known important dishes to the Greeks. “I was 14 when my grandma taught me love and the difference between lasagna and moussaka. I was 15 when I fell in love with lasagna. I was 16 when I met moussaka. I was 17 when I realised it didn’t matter. Lasagna or moussaka, being on the other side of love hurt”, page 32. This highlights personification, personifying love with food. It didn’t matter which ever if Lasagna or Moussaka was the favourite.
In reference to the novel ‘The First Third’ by Will Kostaskis, it evaluates that family and culture are on part of one’s identity. In the end, Bill and his family had a happy ending, with a fixed relationships between the brothers. Therefore, to the extent of agree, I agree with the statement that family and culture is essential to one’s identity.
