Heart Speaks to Heart Across a Cultural Divide - Summary :

The article “Heart Speaks to Heart Across a Cultural Divide “is written by Gaul Saunders. This article is about two women from different backgrounds who taught together in school. The writer mentions the rift means disagreement or division between the writer’s culture and her friend, a teacher. The story is compared with the story of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ written by William Shakespeare. In the story, the writer falls out of favor with the administration and was fired out that hurt her. Unfortunately, it seems she has no friends to help and support her.

The writer and her friend were working together in a school and were a neighbor. They had a friendly relationship with each other but later she felt that there was a political and ideological barrier between them. One day, the school administration fired the writer from the job by telling many ugly untrue things but the writer’s friend was not because she was from the same community. That hurt the writer’s feelings so she stopped smiling, socializing and felt an outsider. The women who quarreled were the same friend whom the writer met in the café. Her friend told the writer that she was lifeless and became shocked due to the pathetic life of the author.

From the day, they began talking, going to school together, eating together and talk about their philosophies on life,  religion and their families. Though they had a lot of differences, they respected each other. Their differences were mostly political and cultural. The reunification of friendship helped the writer to overcome the problems. In the end, ignoring the cultural and religious differences, they exchanged phone numbers and said goodbye. In a printed card, the writer received her friend’s saying: ”To my best friend: I wish you the best.”

Hence, the story is about the problems created by cultural and religious differences and solutions of the problems due to friendship bonding.