Judgment in the House of Sand and Fog People place judgment on one another every day based on differences. Sometimes it is done subconsciously; sometimes it is done on purpose. In the book The House of Sand and Fog, by Andre Dubus III, two different cultures were represented; Kathy represented the culture of the western civilization, whereas Behrani represented the culture of Persians. People judge one another based on unimportant things, and get judged based on those same things as well. Two cultures were used to amplify how different their cultures were from one another. Throughout the book cultures vocalized what they did not like about the other cultures by placing judgment on people based on ethnicity, appearance, and status; …show more content…

When Kathy and Lester drove by the house and saw the families on the widows walk they made judgments immediately. "Jesus. Look at them," (pg. 131) says Lester, regarding their all wearing Persian formal attire. Kathy and Lester dress in jeans and t-shirts, Kathy wears shorts that leave most of her legs revealed, and wears her hair messy and down. When Behrani first sees her he observes, "She is dressed in short pants and a short shirt without sleeves… Once again I shake my head at how these American women live. I look once more at her naked legs and feet, then I return to my yard with my tea," (pg. 71). Behrani judges Kathy as being a "typical American woman" who leaves her legs naked and bare, a characteristic which he later uses to justify to himself that Kathy is a whore. Clothing and cleanliness have a large impact on how others judge each other. In Appiah's text, a cultural preservationist says, "They have no real choice. We've dumped cheap Western clothes into their markets, and they can no longer afford the silk they used to wear," (paragraph 18). Even a cultural preservationist judges the way people dress considering them unable to purchase what they want to wear, even if that might not be the case, and the people might like wearing the "cheap Western clothes." Cultures are very judgmental of other cultures' appearance. A person's status is closely linked to their appearance. A person may appear poor however and