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Analysis Of Amin Maalouf's In The Name Of Identity

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The topic about identity has been an ongoing debate for centuries. Some individuals believe that identity has been set since the day a person was born, although this may be true, others believe that it is constantly interchangeable throughout a person’s lifetime; this is what Amin Maalouf believes. According to the Maalouf, he asserts in his book In the Name of Identity that every individual has his own unique set of an identity hierarchy, which consists of affiliations and allegiances. The most dominant aspect of an individual’s identity manifests when one allegiance is under attack. It is evident that a change in the hierarchy will trigger fundamental changes in the individual 's behavior. For this reason, the poet Mahmoud Darwish’s basis …show more content…

For instance, in the poem “I belong there”, he writes “I have a saturated meadow. In the deep horizon of my word, I have a moon, a bird’s sustenance, and an immortal olive tree.” Although the people of Palestine are forced to immigrate, the meadows, the moon and an olive tree do not. He uses the word immortal to describe an olive tree because even though the Israelis took away the land from the Palestinians, they can never take away their identity. The olive tree might be in Israeli territory; however, its roots belongs to the Palestinians and those roots will never die like the integrity of its …show more content…

In chapter five of his book, he argues about how hard it is for immigrants in foreign countries to find their identity since they feel conflicted with their ethnical identity and their new national identity. Mahmoud Darwish himself is an immigrant. He was only six years old when he encountered his first exile due to the Israeli occupation of his homeland. His family was then forced to move to Lebanon in 1948 since the Israeli army burnt down his village in order to guarantee no Palestinian would ever return. He then moved back to occupied Palestinian territory and he felt as though he was an immigrant because it is no longer his country. In this part of his life, he composed a poem called Rahman, he writes “home, for we have no home”. Darwish was stating that he technically was home; however, he did not feel as though he was because he did not have one

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Firoozeh writes about her life as an Iranian immigrant to America. Her family is treated with kindness by neighbors when they come to live in America and get lost on their way home from school: “…the woman and her daughter walked us all the way to our front porch and even helped my mother unlock the unfamiliar door,” (Dumas, 7). Firoozeh and her mother are not discriminated against because they are immigrants who don’t speak English, the Americans help them despite their differences. Had the neighbors not been helpful and patient, Firoozeh’s journey home would have been somewhat traumatic and daunting. While this a rather specific isolated example, it can serve as an analogy for all immigrants’ experience.

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Every type of person struggles with a thing we call, identity. Personal identity come from multiple factors from our race to our own personal beliefs. Some people say we have the choice to choose our own identity, but is that always true? No, in fact other people can affect how we look and essentially identity our self’s. In the article called.

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According to “Authenticity and Identity” by the author, Bob Edelstein, he interprets an identity is classified as values that reflect who a person is. A person having a lack of understanding what their own values are called the term “identity crisis” which is explained by Susan Krauss Whitbourne in the article “Are You Having an Identity Crisis?”. According to Shahram Heshmat, the author of “Basic of Identity”, “Lack of a coherent sense of identity will lead to uncertainty about what one wants to do in the life” (1). This states that if a person has this lack of understanding about their values, can’t fulfil their own qualities. This relates to the characters of A Separate Peace.

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In John Knowles’s novel A Separate Peace Identity is shown as what defines us and makes us be placed in other peoples perspectives. An author can use identity to place characters in the readers mind to portray them a certain way, just as John Knowles did in A Separate peace. An identity can be defined as who a person is inside and out.

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In academic article “Who Am I” by Beverly Daniel Tatum; she talks about the complexity of identity, which defined as a person. She describes the multiple identities of different kinds of people and their significance in the community. She illustrate the how person past, historical event, family background, experiences, and thought of person has impact on the personal identification. The concept of past, present, and future, those characterize the person identity. She explains how gander of person is the part of identity, which build identity.

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Identity is simply all-or nothing. The second belief that he targets regards the importance of personal identity; important matters involving survival, memory and responsibility.

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Identity is something people tend to think of as consistent, however that is far from the case. The Oxford English dictionary states that the definition of identity is “ The characteristics determining who or what a person or thing is.” The allegorical novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding tackles the issue of identity while following young boys from the ages twelve and down as they struggle with remembering their identities when trapped on a deserted island. Identity is affected by the influence of society and how individuals influence society based on their identities. By looking at Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the Stanford Prison Experiment, and Sigmund Freud 's philosophical ideas, it becomes clear that identity is affected by society through peer pressure and social normalities.

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What is Identity? Identity is like a fingerprint; it clearly determines who people are. Identity is something that people are not born with, it is an act people do that classifies their identity. People need to act upon their own choices to determine their own identity rather than being influenced by the choices of others. So, people must follow their own path in order to keep their own unique identity.

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The identity a person holds is one of the most important aspects of their lives. Identity is what distinguishes people from others, although it leaves a negative stereotype upon people. In the short story Identities by W.D Valgardson, a middle-aged wealthy man finds himself lost in a rough neighborhood while attempting to look for something new. The author employs many elements in the story, some of the more important ones being stereotype and foreshadow. For many people, their personal identity is stereotyped by society.

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In the article ‘The Complexity of Identity - Who am I?’ , the author Beverly Tatum argues that the definition of identity for a person is laid down by the societal norms and not by one’s own conscious understanding of her or his existence. And these societal norms are the ones that are acceptable to the dominant group of the society. Any aspect of one’s identity that sets her or him apart from others is targeted by the dominants. Tatum has used the terms ‘dominants’ and ‘subordinates’.

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Identity speaks of who we are as individuals but it also comes from two different groups: social and cultural. These groups are connected to power, values and ideology. Social identities are related to how we interact with people and how we present ourselves. Meanwhile cultural identities relate to society in whole such as religion, values, etc. In this paper I will talk about the dominant and subordinate identities.

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Introduction The concept of identity has been a notion of significant interest not just to sociologists and psychologists, but also to individuals found in a social context of perpetually trying to define themselves. Often times, identities are given to individuals based on their social status within a certain community, after the assessment of predominant characteristics that said individual has. However, within the context of an ethnicity, the concept identity is most probably applied to all members of the ethnical group, and not just one individual. When there is one identity designated for the entire group, often times the factor of “individuality” loses its significance, especially when referring to the relationship between the ethnic

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Paul- Michel Foucault was a French philosopher also known as a historian of systems of thoughts whose influence extended across a broad array of disciplines especially in the humanities and social sciences and a social critic. He created his own title when he was promoted to professorship at one of the most prestigious colleges in France “College de France” in 1970. He is perhaps best known for his ruminations on power, self identity, epistemology, and the evolution of systems of thought and meaning. He is often described as post-structuralist or post modernist, however Foucault himself rejected such titles, preferring to analyse their significance rather than identifying with them.

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