An Interpretation Of The Salt Eaters From The Perspective Of Cultural Relativism

Toni Cade Bambara(1939-1995)is a brilliant African American female writer.She is one of the most important black female writers in American literature in the twentieth century,with multiple identities.She is also a novelist,essayist,journalist,editor,filmmaker,feminist,social activist and community leader.Her works have lasted for a long time and have been translated into many translations.The Salt Eaters is a classic novel by Toni Cade Bambara.It won the Langston Hughes Society Award,National Endowment for the Arts Grant and the American Book Award in 1981.With the publication of The Salt Eaters,foreign scholars and critics have paid great attention to The Salt Eaters.Foreign and domestic scholars and critics mostly analyzed The Salt Eaters from the perspective of the theme of the novel,the comparison between the novel and the other novels,and the narrative strategy.Cultural relativism emphasizes uniqueness,equality and mutual respect among all ethnic groups.There are no advantages or disadvantages in any ethnic culture.This thesis analyzes the novel The Salt Eaters from the perspective of cultural relativism.The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the language traits,folkloric features,and religious characteristics in The Salt Eaters of three aspects which are same in cultural relativism.Cultural relativism is a concept in which people should understand one’s activities or beliefs from one’s cultural terms and values,not the understanding of others.The Salt Eaters contains rich black language features such as unusual spelling,special syntactic structure and Black English rhetoric;the obvious features,such as black folk music,black folktales and black customs;mysterious black religious features such as traditional black region—animism and voodoo,as well as the integration of black religion with mainstream religion Christianity.