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Identity In Moonlight

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Recommended: Personal and social identity in literature

Moonlight explores topics otherwise not prevalent in mainstream media such as the presence of LGBT characters, drug addicted parents, and identity. These issues have surrounded Chiron very early in his childhood. Little does he know that these are problems that will plague his life up into his adulthood. On top of facing these problems, Chiron is thrusted into identities from other individuals in the film. Lil, Chiron, and Black are the major roles he plays throughout his life as he attempts to figure out who he truly is. Moreover, Chiron’s life is a voyage of self-acceptance and discovery. The first chapter of Chiron’s life is titled as Lil. This both describes his age and height at the time, but also how innocent he is. At this stage, he …show more content…

He typically keeps to himself, and tries to blend into the crowd to avoid bullies despite them attacking him at any given moment. Although it is never revealed how the bullies know Chiron is gay, they torment him because of it. Not only does this affect Chiron mental but physically as well. In one specific scene where Chiron is walking home from school, Terrell catches up to him and begins to talk about his mother in a negative light. To defend himself, Chiron tells him to stop talking ill of his mother. However, Terrell overpowers Chiron and informs him to keep his head down and take the abuse. This scene exemplifies that Chiron is still a child inside who was never able to enjoy his time as a kid. Rather than fight back he sticks to the only tactics he knows which is to run away. However, as the film progresses Kevin is forced to beat up Chiron his close childhood friend. This specific scene prompts Chiron to one again take the beating, but to take action he realizes the only way to stop violence against him is to use force. As Chiron is in the washroom cleansing his face of blood another identity is born to defend himself from the world that has been so cruel to him. His rash actions lead him to being carted away in a police car because of his violent actions towards Terrell. This transforms the once shy teen Chiron to become hardened and cold. Although we do not see him physically transition to Black, a major

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The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore is about identity. Throughout the book, Wes Moore questions why he and the other Wes Moore had such different lives, even though, they shared a name. In doing so, it caused him to look deeper into his background and himself and wonder how he ended up where he was, along with the other Wes Moore. According to Wes Moore, “As I’ve puzzled over the issue, I’ve become convinced that there are some clear and powerful measures that can be taking during this crucial time in a young person’s life” (Moore 179). He had discovered that he and the other Wes Moore had similar upbringings, but the choices he made differed from the other Wes Moore’s choices.

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One will eventually come across the day where they are able to figure out who they truly are as a person. A discovery like this will lead to new chapters of life and start new beginnings. Although finding one 's identity can be difficult to understand and accept, it is crucial in life to discover oneself. In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, a teenage girl, who had to overcome and deal with an awful tragedy, takes readers on the long journey she walked before finding meaning and value in who she is as a person.

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Charles Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition, is one of the first novels to discuss racial tension in the Post-Civil War South. Even after the abolition of slavery, white citizens like Major Carteret, General Belmont, and Captain McBane will stop at nothing to maintain the superiority of the white race. Through the novel, Chesnutt closely juxtaposes certain characters, especially of the white and black race to express that the two peoples may not be as different as one would think. For the white’s perspective, they are horrified with threat that the black race is rising in social and economic power. Characters like Janet and Olivia, McBane and Josh Green, and Polly Ochiltree and Julia are all paired together by Chesnutt to express that when one

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Written by John Knowles, A Separate Peace, acknowledges the issues regarding identity through its four major characters: Gene, who suffers a lack of selfhood; Finny, who loses his self in an accident; Leper, who feels overlooked by his peers; and, Brinker, who deems he must live up to his family’s expectations. Though the novel is expressed in Gene’s perspective, identity is the primary theme and touches on all four characters. Furthermore, the three articles, "Are you Having an Identity Crisis?", "Basics of Identity" and, "Authenticity and Identity" all further analyze the topic. Additionally, they amalgamate with the book to describe the insecurities of the characters.

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Blue is essentially a story of searching for identity and creating your own family. Written by Patricia Leavy the story follows three college roommates, as they each piece together who they are in their life after college. Following each characters involvement in relationships and inner dialogue, the book addresses the challenge young adults face coming out of college with finding their identity. Through her story life, Leavy has weaved together sociological themes that relate to identity seeking. Leavy’s book is a story that demonstrates how individuals form identity because it highlights themes of sociological theories, dramaturgy, and socialization.

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“A traumatic experience robs you of your identity” (Dr.Bill). Concentration camps during the agonizing Holocaust disallowed their prisoners to obtain a personal identity. The renowned memoir, Night, written by Holocaust survivor, Eliezer Wiesel, published in 1954 expands the apprehension of the life altering challenges and torment the Jewish society encountered from 1933 to 1945. Identity consists of an individual's distinctive characteristics, beliefs and mannerisms which was forbidden for the Jewish hostages of the Holocaust to attain. Elie’s identity was shaped and reshaped by the traumatic experiences the Jewish community persevered through.

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Faithful Where there is death there is destruction, where there is smoke there is night. In Night by Elie Wiesel Eliezer is forced to endure beatings, selections that will determine if he will be alive the next day, separation from his family, and starvation. Eliezer is a young Jewish boy interested in learning kabala, but when he and his family are taken into Nazi captivity, they are forced to defile places of worship and desecrate their faith. It leaves them asking how this could happen to them? Throughout the story, Eliezer looks for someone or something to believe in because he starts to lose faith in God and he tries to use his dad as a remedy.

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He is continuously bullied by the young boys in his school and community, which is a personal antagonistic force. This antagonistic force continues for him through his adolescent years. One particular character name Terrell is a huge antagonist for Chiron. He continually calls Chiron disrespectful names such as faggot, and makes fun of everything about Chiron’s life. Chiron’s mother is also a personal antagonistic force in the movie.

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In the second half of the novel, “Moonlight Shadow”, the theme of death and loneliness continues. For example, Satsuki jogged to the river where she and Hitoshi hung out, when she meets a woman named Urara. Urara tells Satsuki to come back to the river on a certain day because she will have “a vision...something that happens only once every hundred years or so.” On the appointed day, Satsuki returned to the river and witnessed an unbelievable vision: “There was HItoshi. Across the river, if this wasn’t a dream, and I wasn’t crazy, the figure facing me was Hitoshi.

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Root, Identity and Community have always been the underlying theme of Toni Morrison. Through the accounts of her novels, Toni Morrison shows several ways in which slavery, which was the most oppressive period in the black history, has affected the identity of African American. In Bluest Eye, Morrison shows that a black woman who searches for her true identity feels frustrated by her blackness and yearns to be white because of the constant fear of being rejected in her surroundings. Thus Morrison tries to locate post colonial black identity in the socio-political ground where cultures are hybridized, powers are negotiated and individuals are reproduced as resistant agents. She not only writes about claiming the superiority by the white but also

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