Rite of Passage in the Western Culture Research Paper

Rite of Passage in the Western Culture - Research Paper Example At every important point of a person’s life, a rite of passage helps in the transition from one phase to another. The concept of rite of passage has appealed to many sociologist and anthropologists such as Arnold van Gennep who formed the term rite of passage and gave the different ceremonies practised in different religions and societies, a common word. Gennep further categorized the three phases in three phases, namely separation, transition and incorporation. Gennep through studying the different ceremonies in different religions and societies had been able to find a common ground in all these ceremonies by studying the underlying concept in these rites of passage. Rite of passage in different races, religions and societies differ but they usually celebrate the same events in an individual’s life but in different ways. Similarly, the rite of passage of the west differs from that of the east and the rite of passage of Christianity differs from that of Islam. In this paper, we attempt to analyze the concept behind the rite of passage and the western ways of conducting rites of passage. Rite of passage can be likened to Shakespeare’s ‘Seven ages of man’, where a man changes drastically from one stage of another. From the time an individual is born to the time when he is buried, the rite of passage helps him in a smooth movement from one transition to another. According to Victor Turner, rites of passage can be divided into two broad categories, those that ‘accompany the passage of a person from one social status to another and (those that) mark recognized points in the passage of time, such as new year, new moon, Passover and so forth’ (Klingbeil, 2007). Thus rites of passage are both religious and social. Religious rite of passage includes the rituals that are carried forward from endless times and differ in each religion to a certain extent. One can find similarities between the  religious rites of passage of different religions in the way that they celebrate the same events.