Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down shows that Lia’s story and her culture, the Hmong culture, are a problematic tragedy according to Janelle Taylor. The Hmong culture is simplified by being shown as a difficult, uncompromising culture that refuses to change their ways. Fadiman shows cultures as a static and unchanging, which is untrue. Cultures are always changing and not static. American culture is more future oriented, while the Hmong culture is presented as past oriented. The Hmong are super rigid, stubborn and refuse to change. Western medicine is shown as the culture that only focuses on the agency of the individual and the scientific side of everything. The doctors who stand for western medicine are shown as the heroic doctors, who do everything they can to save their patient. Because of the Hmong and they’re so stubborn and refuse to compromise, they were fighting the impossible battle. They were fighting the medical system and were unable to win against the hard to deal with Hmong culture. The doctors are also rigid, stubborn and unchanging, but this is to show that they …show more content…
One day, Lia’s sister slammed the door to their apartment and Lia had suffered through a seizure. Fadiman states that Lia’s parents believed that the “installation of Lia’s soul during the hu plig ceremony, the noise of the door had been so profoundly frightening that her soul had fled her body and become lost” (Fadiman 20). The doctors believed it was a seizure and said that she suffers from epilepsy, which is common among the Hmong. The Hmong believed that if someone is sick, they have been chosen to become a shaman of sorts. They learn to help others with similar symptoms with them, if they refused to help, they would die. Lia’s parents were of course concerned and wanted her to be healed. They were also proud because Lia was selected and might grow up to be a