Unit V: Human Nature and Culture

Summary

Unit V brings together five distinct essays that, while varied in subject, share a common concern: the ways individuals on the margins of society confront, reinterpret, and reclaim dominant cultural discourses. Elisabeth Kübler‑Ross’s “On the Fear of Death” outlines the psychological stages of dying and critiques the cultural taboo surrounding mortality, arguing for open confrontation to improve end‑of‑life care. Esra Ari’s “How I Became an Alevi Muslim Woman” offers a personal narrative of navigating religious identity within Turkey’s Alevi minority, highlighting gender dynamics, ritual practice, and communal belonging. Arundhati Roy’s “The Graveyard Talks Back: Fiction in the Time of Fake News” critiques contemporary media ecosystems, advocating fiction as a tool to expose hidden truths and resist propaganda. James Baldwin’s “Stranger in the Village” reflects on being a Black American in a remote Swiss village, examining the gaze, otherness, and the universality of racism. Nancy Mairs’s “On Being a Cripple” reclaims the term “cripple” as a source of pride, discussing disability identity, stigma, and the politics of language. Together, these texts foreground human nature’s struggle for meaning, belonging, and agency within cultural structures that often seek to silence or marginalize.

Characters

Although these works are primarily essays rather than fiction, the “characters” can be understood as the authors themselves and the communities they represent. Below is a brief overview of each authorial voice and the salient figures that populate their narratives.

• Elisabeth Kübler‑Ross – Swiss‑American psychiatrist; pioneer of near‑death studies; presents the dying patient as a central figure whose psychological journey informs clinical practice.
• Esra Ari – Alevi Muslim woman of Turkish descent; narrates her own journey of faith, gender expectations, and ethnic identity within a marginalized Islamic tradition.
• Arundhati Roy – Indian novelist and activist; positions herself as a witness and critic of media manipulation, invoking the metaphor of a graveyard that “talks back” to false narratives.
• James Baldwin – African‑American writer and social commentator; recounts his experience as the sole Black person in a Swiss alpine village, using the villagers and his own perception as interlocutors.
• Nancy Mairs – American essayist living with multiple sclerosis; reclaims the label “cripple” and invites readers to reconsider societal attitudes toward disability.

In each essay, secondary “characters” emerge: the hospice staff and family members in Kübler‑Ross’s work; the Alevi community elders and peers in Ari’s narrative; the media conglomerates and political actors in Roy’s critique; the Swiss villagers and Baldwin’s internalized stereotypes; and the able‑bodied public, medical professionals, and disability activists in Mairs’s polemic.

Plot

Because the unit consists of nonfiction essays, the notion of “plot” is reframed as the logical progression of each author’s argument and the movement from personal observation to broader cultural critique.

1. Kübler‑Ross – “On the Fear of Death”
   • Introduction of death as a taboo subject in Western culture.
   • Presentation of the five psychological stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) derived from clinical observation.
   • Argument that acknowledging these stages can transform end‑of‑life care from curative desperation to compassionate accompaniment.
   • Call for medical professionals, families, and policymakers to confront mortality openly.
2. Ari – “How I Became an Alevi Muslim Woman”
   • Personal recollection of growing up in a secular Turkish household with Alevi roots.
   • Description of Alevi rituals (cem gatherings, music, dance) and their divergence from Sunni orthodoxy.
   • Negotiation of gender expectations within the Alevi community versus broader Turkish society.
   • Realization of agency through embracing both faith and feminist critique.
   • Conclusion that identity is a continual, dialogic process rather than a fixed label.
3. Roy – “The Graveyard Talks Back: Fiction in the Time of Fake News”
   • Observation of the proliferation of misinformation in digital media ecosystems.
   • Critique of the commodification of news and the erosion of investigative journalism.
   • Argument that fiction, by its nature, can reveal deeper truths that factual reporting obscures.
   • Examples of literary works that have historically countered propaganda (e.g., Orwell, Naipaul).
   • Urging writers and readers to treat storytelling as a form of resistance.
4. Baldwin – “Stranger in the Village”
   • Arrival in a remote Swiss village where the inhabitants have never seen a Black person.
   • Description of the villagers’ curiosity, fascination, and underlying fear.
   • Reflection on the historical construction of the “Black” body as a symbol of exotic danger.
   • Recognition that racism is not confined to America but is a universal human propensity to Other.
   • Conclusion that genuine belonging requires confronting the gaze and acknowledging shared humanity.
5. Mairs – “On Being a Cripple”
   • Personal declaration of pride in the term “cripple” as a reclaimed identifier.
   • Examination of societal stigma, pity, and the medical model of disability.
   • Humorous anecdotes that illustrate everyday encounters with ableism.
   • Political argument that language shapes perception and that activism must target linguistic norms.
   • Invitation to readers to reconsider their own attitudes toward disability and difference.

Themes

The essays in Unit V converge on several interlocking themes that illuminate the tension between individual agency and cultural forces.

• Confronting Taboo – Kübler‑Ross and Mairs both challenge societal silences: one around death, the other around disability.
• Identity Negotiation – Ari and Baldwin explore how minority identities are formed, performed, and resisted within dominant cultural frames.
• Media and Truth – Roy’s critique of fake news underscores the power of narrative to either conceal or reveal reality.
• The Gaze and Otherness – Baldwin’s Swiss village and Ari’s Alevi community illustrate how the gaze constructs the Other and how the gazed‑upon can reclaim agency.
• Reclamation of Language – Mairs’s proud use of “cripple” and Ari’s embrace of Alevi terminology exemplify linguistic self‑definition as resistance.

Analysis

From a literary‑cultural studies perspective, each essay exemplifies the creative nonfiction tradition’s capacity to blur the line between personal testimony and sociopolitical critique. The following analysis draws on trauma theory, postcolonial thought, disability studies, and media ecology to unpack the texts.

Psychological Stages and the Medical Humanities

Kübler‑Ross’s stage model, though later became a cornerstone of palliative care. By framing dying as a process rather than an event, she shifted the medical focus from cure to care. Contemporary scholars such as Arthur Kleinman have echoed this move, arguing that “illness narratives” restore the patient’s subjectivity. In Unit V, students can compare Kübler‑Ross’s clinical observations with the phenomenological approach of scholars like Havi Carel, who emphasizes the lived experience of illness.

Minority Faith and Gender

Ari’s narrative offers a fertile ground for discussing intersectionality. Her Alevi identity situates her within a heterodox Islamic tradition that historically emphasized egalitarian rituals, yet she encounters patriarchal expectations both within her community and the wider Turkish state. This dual marginality mirrors the experiences of other minority faith women (e.g., Ahmadiyya, Druze) and invites analysis through the lens of Lila Abu‑Lughod’s work on “writing against culture.”

Fiction as Counter‑Discourse

Roy’s essay aligns with the concept of “strategic essentialism” in postcolonial theory, where marginalized groups temporarily adopt essentialist identities to achieve political aims. By advocating fiction as a means to expose hidden truths, Roy echoes the ideas of Gayatri Spivak concerning the subaltern’s inability to speak within dominant discourses. The unit can juxtapose Roy’s claim with historical examples such as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart as literary interventions in sociopolitical crises.

The Universality of the Gaze

Baldwin’s Swiss vignette anticipates later theorizations of the “white gaze” (Frantz Fanon) and the “colonial gaze” (Edward Said). His observation that the villagers’ fascination is simultaneously admiring and fearful captures the ambivalence inherent in Orientalist representations. Students can connect Baldwin’s insight to contemporary discussions of microaggressions and the hypervisibility of Black bodies in media.

Disability Pride and Linguistic Activism

Mairs’s reclamation of “cripple” parallels the reclamation of queer slurs (“queer,” “dyke”) and racial epithets (“nigger,” “cholo”) within activist circles. Her essay anticipates the social model of disability, which posits that disability arises not from bodily impairment but from societal barriers. Scholars such as Lennard J. Davis have built on Mairs’s insistence that language is a site of political struggle, making her work a foundational text in disability studies.

Conclusion

Unit V demonstrates how creative nonfiction can serve as a vehicle for marginalized voices to interrogate, resist, and reimagine the cultural scripts that seek to define them. By examining death, faith, media, race, and disability through personal yet analytically rigorous lenses, students gain a nuanced understanding of the ways individuals navigate—and sometimes transform—the structures that shape human nature. The essays collectively argue that openness, whether to mortality, to alternative belief systems, to uncomfortable truths, or to reclaimed language, is essential for fostering a more empathetic and just society. In engaging with these texts, learners are encouraged to reflect on their own positionalities, to question dominant narratives, and to consider how storytelling itself can become an act of cultural repair.