SOURCE: "Patterns of Culture," in Ruth Benedict: Patterns of a Life, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983, pp. 184-215.

Modell is an American anthropologist. In the following excerpt from her biography of Benedict she discusses the themes in Patterns of Culture in relation to Benedict's life and times.

In Patterns of Culture Ruth Benedict focused on a topic with personal ramifications and a professional legitimacy; self and society was not a new topic for her or her discipline. She went beyond the self-is-nothing-without-society theorem and, though readers did not always notice, beyond a mere equivalence of personality and culture. Ruth claimed that individuals needed society for their very individuality and that societies needed individualities in order to survive, adjust to crisis, and change.

Ruth also had a particular idea about how to present these points. In proper anthropological fashion, her fieldwork experiences gave her a clue. She applied a Zufii...