Okay so I'm doing a character development workshop...?

Question

and one of the questions ask about her culture during her childhood. I'm not exactly sure what culture is, or rather i do but i don't know how to explain it.

How would you explain the culture in the life of a girl living in the 1770's in NY during the revolutionary war? Her mother is a homemaker and her dad is a well known carpenter...

Answer 1

I can't give you specifics from that era, but "culture" means the values and customs that a society or community holds.  So if you're talking about modern times and comparing three people, you talk about their upbringing, and say one person grew up in Brooklyn, another grew up in rural New Mexico, and another grew up in China, you know they're all coming from different cultures.  

So you would need to do some research about 1770's New York.  Perhaps the simplest thing is to read a book or short story from that era and really pay attention to the lifestyle details.

Answer 2

Not familiar enough with the time period to give you many specific suggestions.  

The first thing you'd want to decide is whether she's a patriot or a loyalist/tory.  Based on her parents' professions I'm guessing their patriots.  That would be part of their culture.

The culture you grow up in has a lot to do with teaching you the values you have later in life. And your values and moral code are who you are as a person at your very core.  

That's basically what the reason for the question, it's to help you define who your character is.  The more you know about your characters the easier it is to write them.  Even though you probably won't put a lot of the info you write in a character sketch into the final piece it shines through.

I don't know if that helps but I hope that it does.

Answer 3

Culture is how people live, their customs, and what is right and wrong for them. For example in Muslim culture, women cover their bodies up, whereas in western culture we have tons of people in skimpy clothing.