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The theme of Identity in literature
Personal identity in literature
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More handpicked essays just for you.
The theme of Identity in literature
Personal identity in literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Lost Mother, Lost Child Zakariyya is the fifth and youngest of Henrietta's children. After the death of his mother, Baby Joe nearly dies of tuberculosis and soon finds himself in the care of a cousin who loves to abuse him. Zakariyya's anger at this treatment is mythical—kind of like Henrietta's aggressive cells. And it wasn't long before people were making the comparison: Joe grew into the meanest, angriest child any Lacks had ever known, and the family started saying something must have happened to his brain while he was growing inside Henrietta alongside that cancer. (112) Zakariyya believes this too.
The reformation of civilization’s thoughts and discrimination has changed over the years from the culture of every ethnicity or race. Every person no matter the race has some sort of cultural tradition that has been past down from generation to generation. In the play “Raisin in The Sun” the character Beneatha has a difficult time trying to find herself. Beneatha struggles with cultural identity, finding herself, and achieving her dreams.
Shahana is living in a time of war, living with the constant fear of being killed living in the shadow of the line of control where Pakistani and Indian soldiers lurk. In such times Shahana is forced to be courageous to get through these tough times. Throughout the book we can sees pieces evidence of Shahana being courageous. Near the start of the book on page Kashmir is war-torn as they are fighting for land and they often kill people in the process because of a broken cease-fire. This makes life in Kashmir hard because medicine or food supplies as shown on page 12 "Trucks cannot easily get through, and the one that did charged me danger money "usually the trucks are over the LoC often they never arrive because it, she takes courage by
In the novel Milkweed, by Jerry Spinelli, our main character goes through many identities which change his perspective on life. In this book, he lives in Warsaw, Poland during World War ll and has to overcome many obstacles to survive the harsh living conditions surrounding him. These include starvation, loneliness, and his constant search for his identity. His identity gives him the strength to survive. As the story progressed, it became clear that the key to survival was the need to own some sort of identity to rely on.
Many people are exposed to different cultures throughout their lifetime and inherit various traditions and beliefs from these interactions. However, the addition of another culture distances a person from their original identity, one of the most important themes of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake. This theme is introduced at the very beginning of the novel when Gogol Ganguli is made aware of the American culture at a very young age. In addition, he tries to balance out both cultures without offending or hurting his parents. However, just like many people he struggles to fit into the American culture because he is still holding onto his Bengali past.
In the book, “The Namesake,” Gogol, the protagonist is a son of first-generation immigrants to the U.S. from India who is tasked with living the double life, fitting in with the culture of his parents as swell as the culture of U.S. Although Gogol struggles to find an identity, his struggle is based on the fact that he cannot fully be Bengali or American. Therefore he has to find a bridge between the two identities, which is the same struggle for many second generations. "For being a foreigner Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy -- a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been an ordinary life, only to discover that previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding. Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiosity of from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect.”(49
1. In the closing pages of The Namesake Gogol muses “Without people around him to call him Gogol, no matter how long he himself lives, Gogol Ganguli will, once and for all, vanish from the lips of loved ones, and so, cease to exist.” (Lahiri 289) Taking this thought into account, to what extent is identity contingent upon the perceptions of others? While what Gogol believes may seem like a generalized subjective assumption, this is an opinion that is only specific to Gogol.
In “the namesake”, chapters 3 and 4 show how Gogol develops from a child attached to his family, in particular, his mother, to a teenager that often rejects his parents and their culture. This is most dramatically seen on his first day of Kindergarten, when he rejects his “good name”’ Nikhil, because he wants to be called the name his parents call him at home, and at the end of chapter 4 when he is so fed up with the name Gogol that he lies at the college party, telling Kim his name is Nikhil. Gogol changed a lot over the course of chapters 3 and 4. The major change is his relationship to his name. At the beginning, he hated the name “Nikhil” so much that he doesn’t want to go to kindergarten because he won’t be called Gogol and instead, being called by his new name, Nikhil (Lahiri, 56).
Gogol, the son of Ashima and Ashoke, was born in America and spends the first half of his life trying to run away from his Bengali roots. Although Gogol does not feel as lost and detached as his parents in America, he has a difficult time trying to balance the Bengali culture he was born into as well as the American culture he sees and experiences all around him as he is growing up. Throughout the novel, The Namesake, Gogol struggles to develop his identity due to the clashing of Bengali and American culture in his life. Gogol’s first obstacle in his search for self-identity occurs only a couple days after his birth, when his parents must decide on a name in order to be released from the hospital. Ashima and Ashoke eventually decide on Gogol, after the writer who saved Ashoke’s life during a train crash.
Children of immigrants develop a unique relationship between the cultures of their nationality and America. Torn between their different ethnicities, cultures, and aspirations, they struggle with their identity. However, as they grow older, the children tend to form a cultural imbalance, often favoring their American roots. In Mira Nair’s film adaptation of The Namesake, Gogol struggles with his identity as a Bengali American. Throughout his adolescent years, Gogol negotiates his Bengali roots with his parents, as he tries to fit in as American.
In The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, Lahiri uses Gogol’s decision to mark a change his name as a turning point in his life and personality. When he considers his current circumstances, he thinks: “Other boys his age have begun to court girls already, asking them to go to the movies or the pizza parlor, but he cannot imagine saying, ‘Hi, it’s Gogol’ under potentially romantic circumstances. He cannot imagine this at all” (76). While his name is Gogol, Gogol feels uncomfortable and shy about his name. Not only does it not assist him in defining his identity—it is not Indian or American—no one else has the same name as him.
Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake centers on Gogol’s struggle to navigate and settle into his bicultural identity and he does so in various ways, most significantly through his relationship with Maxine, through which he seeks to confirm his American identity, though he is ultimately driven to accept his Indian American identity, and his relationship with Moushumi, through which he reaffirms his hyphenated Indian-American identity. Gogol’s interracial relationship with Maxine is initially attractive to him for its ability to take him outside of his Indian American cultural identity and tradition. This is evident because he is constantly comparing Maxine’s family to his own, particularly at the beginning of their relationship. For example, when he first has dinner with Maxine’ parents, he thinks to himself that Ashima “would never have served so few dishes” (133) and
Imagine having to divide your cultural identity between two dissimilar cultures; would you not be increasingly conflicted as you attempted to attribute yourself to each way of life? For Gogol Ganguli, this is his reality in being an American-born child with deep roots in west Bengali culture. In The Namesake, the reader follows along the journey of Gogol’s development of his cultural identity. Over the course of his maturation in American society, Gogol develops relationships in respect to his Bengali heritage as well as the society he is surrounded by; therefore, he inflicts a lot of pain upon himself as his indecisiveness on which culture he truly embodies causes many of his relationships to suffer. Ultimately, Gogol forms his self-identity
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.
Have you ever found yourself, yet lost yourself? That question may be a mouthful but think about it. Have you ever steered off of who you are and the discovered a whole new side of yourself? In The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, the main character, Gogol, maintains two identities as Gogol, linking back to his past, and Nikhil, which develops as he grows up. Gogol is more family oriented and more true to Indian culture, while Nikhil follows the “American” way by showing independence and rebellion.