The Global Soul Sparknotes
Confinement: How Strong National Identities Isolate Groups from One Another
Where do you belong? This is a question that Pico Iyer attempts to answer for himself in his book The Global Soul. Iyer travels around the world because he feels like a “global soul.” He experiences the life of other people and observes how they feel about their country and cultural group. National identities create a sense of belonging for a group and Iyer doesn’t feel that safety like many other people and groups do. National identities are becoming more prominent within countries and cultural groups because the attachment to one’s group isolates them from belonging to and accepting other groups. The knowledge Iyer obtained while on his journey paved the way for him to find himself after his difficult childhood.
When Iyer’s childhood house burst into flames, he found himself lost in the world. The conflagration spread quickly and Iyer watched his house turn into nothing. When the flames started, he grabbed his mother’s cat and left immediately. His fifteen years in that house were gone and he looked at himself as homeless. Iyer revels himself through …show more content…
He stops to meet up with his friend David who he met on a plane down to Havana. David’s strong sense of nationalism for his country was presented through his hatred towards other countries, like America. He talks about as a kid how this occurred almost everywhere. People would say, “I can’t take any more of you Americans!” (154) and similar things to that. The dislike of other countries brought the people together for nationalism of their own country. However, this hatred towards other counties is what breaks up the world. People create stereotypes about other groups and judge them whenever they come in contact with them. Negative stereotypes create a separation between each country and the culture surrounding
Where do you belong? This is a question that Pico Iyer attempts to answer for himself in his book The Global Soul. Iyer travels around the world because he feels like a “global soul.” He experiences the life of other people and observes how they feel about their country and cultural group. National identities create a sense of belonging for a group and Iyer doesn’t feel that safety like many other people and groups do. National identities are becoming more prominent within countries and cultural groups because the attachment to one’s group isolates them from belonging to and accepting other groups. The knowledge Iyer obtained while on his journey paved the way for him to find himself after his difficult childhood.
When Iyer’s childhood house burst into flames, he found himself lost in the world. The conflagration spread quickly and Iyer watched his house turn into nothing. When the flames started, he grabbed his mother’s cat and left immediately. His fifteen years in that house were gone and he looked at himself as homeless. Iyer revels himself through …show more content…
He stops to meet up with his friend David who he met on a plane down to Havana. David’s strong sense of nationalism for his country was presented through his hatred towards other countries, like America. He talks about as a kid how this occurred almost everywhere. People would say, “I can’t take any more of you Americans!” (154) and similar things to that. The dislike of other countries brought the people together for nationalism of their own country. However, this hatred towards other counties is what breaks up the world. People create stereotypes about other groups and judge them whenever they come in contact with them. Negative stereotypes create a separation between each country and the culture surrounding