Pliny's Influence On American Culture

351 Words2 Pages

During the medieval time different stories were created by a group of Europeans in with has a misconception of people in the Americans. As a matter of fact, this stories created fears among people. This stories were built of different myths about human monsters. People started to become afraid of the unknown territory. For example, in the Natural History, Notes Vii, stated that; “Pliny starts his treatment of animals with the human race, "for whose sake great Nature appears to have created all other things (6).” In like manner, “This teleological view of nature was common in antiquity and is crucial to the understanding of the Natural History (7).”” In the same way, Pliny gave a description of humans as monsters. Pliny thought that people who live in another land were different by customs, and culture. In Pliny’s Natural History book, VII “India and parts of Ethiopia especially teem with marvels. The biggest animals grow in India: for instance Indian dogs are bigger than any others.” Probably he means that Indians and Ethiopia culture follow the same …show more content…

I believe that people in Europe were just trying to explain that people in the new world probably don’t have the same custom and they look hairy. I believe Pliny was trying to explain that People in the new world do not know how to clean up their self. In other words, this writer 's imagination contribute to the beginnings of science fiction or mythology because is not based on the truth, due to the fact that humans are not monstrous. This idea of monstrous is trying to answer the idea behind Orientalism because is describing the different between the European groups in contrast with people from other worlds; which are consider the subordinate group in society. Not to mention, the fear of dealing with the unfamiliar help them to develop their analytical thinking