Well, it's an adventure story, and a Bildungsroman, of course, but there was also the intention to describe a culture that had been seen in rather narrow terms.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I think the story is the most ancient form of human entertainment.
Stories are one of the means by which a culture preserves its identity.
I'm not certain that I draw from any one culture more than others. Many myths and legends of many different cultures are really the same story when you get to the heart of it. They are often cultural cautionary tales about how we should behave and how we should live.
I've always been fascinated by the grassroots folktale level of a culture, and as a storyteller, I have to follow what seems to be leading me on.
I've tried to show in my most recent book, the 'Irresistible Fairytale', that in order to talk about any genre, particularly what we call simple genre - a myth, a legend, an anecdote, a tall tale, and so on - we really have to understand something about the origin of stories all together.
What I find interesting about folklore is the dialogue it gives us with storytellers from centuries past.
Some Indians will come up and say that a story reminded them of something very specific to their experience. Which may or may not be the case for non-Indians.
The same myths are told in every culture, and they might swap out details, but it's still the same story. It's the same story, but with a different face.
In order to describe a particular subculture, you might want to portray people who are typical or representative of that subculture; but to dramatize it, to make it an interesting setting for a story, you want to bring someone anomalous into that setting, to see how she conforms to it, and it to her.
To me, there is nothing but puerility in a tale in which the human form - and local human passions and conditions and standards - are depicted as native to other worlds and universes.