Hatrack River Writers Workshop: St. Patrick's Day and Ethnicity in Storytelling

This is topic St. Patrick's Day and Ethnicity in Storytelling in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by J (Member # 2197) on :

A lot of the attorneys in my firm are Irish-Catholic. Some aren't. St. Patty's day is kind of a big deal around here. I heard a remarkable repartee over lunch (which, incidentally, was the first time I've ever seen corned beef, cabbage, and soda bread catered)

One of our proud attorneys of Irish descent proclaimed, "God created whiskey so the Irish wouldn't rule the world."

Another (non-Irish) attorney responded, "No, God created whiskey so the Irish wouldn't rule Ireland."

Brilliant.

The witty repartee got me to thinking about the true spice provided by cultures of mixed ethinicity like America. Distinct ethnicity does so much for characterization, and the interaction between ethnicities provides so much opportunity for good dialogue, that I'm surprised that scifi authors, as a whole, largely fail to take advantage of the possibilites. Why create a flat and shallow alien culture to add spice to your novel when you could simply have your main character be Irish (for example)?

[This message has been edited by J (edited March 17, 2006).]

Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :

Or, the better question, is why not utilize the strangeness between alien cultures to provide a little comic relief like you mentioned, where two characters recognize their differences and figure a way to work around them? The sort of incident you mentioned is a good way to develop characterization and highlight the challenges of a milieu at the same time.

I subscribe to Dr. Goodword's "Word of the Day". Today the word was "leprechaun."

quote:
Word History: Nothing seems more Irish than the Gaelic word leprechaun but lurking inside this word is a Latin borrowing that attests to the Catholic Church's influence on the language. The Irish Gaelic luprachán goes back to Old Irish luchorpán. This word is luchorp from lú- "small" + corp "body"—from Latin corpus 'body" + -án, a diminutive suffix. The Gaelic lu "small" is a radically reduced form of PIE *legwh- "light, having little weight" of which English light is a historical paronym. In Latin it emerged as levis "light" and in Russian lëgkiy "light". With a fickle [n], it also emerged in English as lungs which, not long ago, were called lights.

Just a wee bit of word lore for St. Paddy's Day...

Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :

One problem with doing it in earth settings in political correctness. There is a blurry line and if an editor is even somewhat afraid you might have crossed it they won't risk publishing your work.

This is one way in which science fiction has an advantage over mainstream "real life" fiction. You can essentially say and do the exact same thing but without risk of political incorrectness since you "made it all up."

By the way, did the pope give out a special dispensation to allow Catholics to eat meat today? I seem to recall that he did the last time St. patty's day fell on a Friday, but that was a different pope...

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

(As I understand it, the Catholic diocese I happen to be parked in issued a dispensation to allow the consumption of corned beef. I heard it in news reports, not from attendance at church---I haven't been since 1968.)

Ethnicity seems to be a touchy subject nowadays. There are some aspects that can be commented on---followed closely by a whole bunch that can't be brought up. Who happens to be doing the commentary also affects what can and can't be said. Political correctness doesn't seem to account for it all.

You may have seen recent TV ads, for something touting its product as "so simple even a caveman can use it." (Some sort of insurance or insurance website, I think---see just how effective the ad is? I can't remember what it's for.) The next bit has cavemen complaining about how they're being portrayed---and also demonstrating how sophisticated they currently are.

I think they used "cavemen" rather than an existing ethnic group---and you can imagine the outcry if they had used a real group.