The Ecstasy Of Influence: A Plagiarism Analysis

The exploration of one’s self is very crucial to becoming the person you want to be. There are many factors that contribute to this and the most important ones are experiences from everyday life. Jonathan Lethem’s essay “The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism” and Andrew Solomon’s “Son” delve into the idea of taking outside sources to create art and ultimately ourselves with that inspiration. Lethem’s essay helps one to understand what it means to choose ourselves because people are almost like a representation of art. We can’t truly become ourselves through a void but rather in chaos when we can find the things we like and don’t like and transition from there. Although these creations go through similar processes, choosing who we want to

The author of “Son” brings up this idea of vertical and horizontal identities. Each of which are important but to compare it in the sense of Lethem’s essay it would be best to say that vertical identities are similar to the void and horizontal identities are similar to the chaos. Being a part of something new and different can make a person feel things they’ve never felt before and this could play into the role of people and choosing their sexualities. Although this may be different for everyone, people often have that yearning to experience something new and to create something new. Solomon brings up the fact that he actually wanted something out of the norm which lead to him finding out he was gay. He states, “The realization that what I wanted was exotic, and out of step with the majority, came so early that I cannot remember a time preceding it” (Solomon 374). The thought that Solomon knew he wanted something different even as a young child shows just how much people are programmed for the desire to experience something new. The desire to be different ran rampant with him but the downside to him expressing this was blocked simply because of the household he lived in. The invisible barrier of acceptance came around early for him and although he was just a child his mother did not want him taking all outside experiences or inspiration and presenting it through his life. In the essay his mother states, “When you were little, you didn’t like to do what the other kids liked to do, and I encouraged you to be yourself. I sometimes think I let things go too far” (Solomon 374). The admittance of this shows that people cannot take the chaos in which we experience and create our personal lives with it. There is this invisible barrier that traps us into a void or rather our parents’ vertical identities so that a child’s perception can