Complexity In Paper Towns

Social status often establishes one 's credibility and integrity within a society. The power that social status has, encourages people to heavily focus on it. With this focus on social status ever pressing, one’s identity often gets intertwined with and reliant on their place in the hierarchy of society. People become fixated on one idea they have of a person in a certain social class, that anybody who breaks out of specific stereotypes may often cause anger amongst others. In the short story “Greenleaf” by Flannery O’Connor, the main character, Mrs. May, is obsessive about the way others perceive her and her place in society. Mr. May’s identity is so strictly tied to her desire to get to a higher social class and her notions how society

Identity is what defines people. It is every aspect of life that range from culture to religious beliefs, friends and family, every of it makes a piece of an individual’s personal identity. In fact, it is completely normal for people to feel lost while searching for their identity. Washington Irving, America’s first writer, is best known by his famous short story “Rip Van Winkle” which emphasizes in the struggle of finding a new identity after the American Revolution because of the characters that appear, the symbolism, and the setting where the story is placed.

Human beings have full control over their identities after they have received knowledge and have become shaped from external stimuli. These stimuli include the teaching process of humans which comes through tradition, schooling, and the actions of other humans and the influence of the organisms around them. Andrew Solomon, through “Son,” was able to use his experience of growing up and labeling himself as a gay dyslexic to show how his environment and knowledge had shaped his identity and how it was viewed by others with different identities. In “An Elephant Crackup,” Charles Siebert was able to explain how the other organisms or humans are able to form new identities for elephants over time by shaping them a new environment and having the elephants process it. In “Mind’s Eye,” Oliver Sacks had different case studies of blindness from different people and was able to show how each one experienced their blindness help shape and express their individual identities. The stimuli that becomes processed by a person in the situations, accounts, and studies of these works assist in the role of explaining the formulation of an identity.

“In Defense of Masks”, by Kenneth Gergen regards that it is not possible for humans to adequately find a coherent self identity without an aftermath. Gergen states, “to the extent that they do, they many experience severe emotional distress” when trying to do so (172). He refers to Erik Erickson, a psychologist who speaks about how self-alienation can result due to the pressures of society to individuals with various masks of identity.

In the book City of Glass, by Paul Auster, identity is used to develop and establish existence in society. The author shows the challenges of identity by showing Daniel Quinn struggling to develop his own identity. The struggle of identity is carried through the text as Quinn bounces from one persona to the next. Nicola Caleffi’s article called Paul Auster’s Urban Nothingness supports the idea that Daniel Quinn’s character struggles finding his identity, as he takes on many different identities as his surroundings change. Identity is constantly changing as a result of its surroundings making it hard to remain stable and avoid deteriation.

False identity can become so inherent to a person’s character, they can begin to forget where it stops and their true self begins. In Tobias Wolff’s novel Old School, the narrator and the literary review the Troubadour both are hiding behind a persona that is placed onto them by themselves or others. An aspirational vision of the characters is the basis of their personas. Wanting to be more then they already are, the characters end up believing in the lies told to persuade others of their importance. Placing the personas on themselves is a way to divert people from the true nature of their identity, which might not live up to their expectations. The identities taken on by the narrator and the Troubadour convey that what they are and what they want to be are not yet the same.

Yet they often have a desire to prove themselves to the world. The author Wes had portrayed himself as the “Class Clown” of his private school as an elementary school student, so even as a child he had a reputation to uphold. This suggests that decisions also reflect what a person desires the outside world to perceive. Furthermore, author Wes also admits that he had separate personas between his different group of friends; he had his street mask and his private school mask, and it puts in question, what is his identity. By having these masks, he proves a point that reputation means the world to youths.

Written in a brilliant way, Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” captures the attention of the reader for its multi-layered perfection. The novel focuses an African American living in Harlem, New York. The novelist does not name his protagonist for a couple of reasons. One reason is to show his confusion of personal identity and the other to show he is “invisible”. Thus he becomes every Black American who is in search of their own identity. He is a true representative of the black community in America who is socially and psychologically dominated everywhere. The narrator is invisible to others because he is seen by the stereotypes rather than his true identity. He takes on several identities to find acceptance from his peers, but eventually

Despite being a very diverse literature genre in terms of influence and inspiration, North American literature encompasses many works that share some very common thematic elements. Though there are several themes shared, one in particular can be found in most any work – the importance of identity. Particularly in some selected pieces yet to be named, identity is a very important element, not only because it is a necessity for a main character in any work of literature, but because these works express ideas about identity as being very individualistic – as opposed to being a mere result of cultural surroundings. Zora Neal Hurtson’s Their

Over the course of your life, you come to struggle with the philosophical idea of personal identity; the thing that makes you, you. Oneself may shape their identity around aspects of their life that they have no control over like race and physical traits, as well as decisions that are made throughout their lives like affiliations and religion. Your personal identity can be seen through your passions and interactions with others. An individual’s search for their identity is something that may occur in everyone’s’ life. In the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie highlights the theme of how the search for identity is always prevalent, through the conflicted characters of Junior and Mary throughout the novel.

Often people question who they really are, this identity crisis can be confusing because no one is ever born perfect, instead we strive to live up to the standards believed to be ideal. However, the inflence others put upon ourselves can persuade us to forget the genuine intents we may have potentially leading living a lie. Many fall victim to regret from being mislead by people who mindlessly obey those who are deemed superior in the eyes of society. By analyzing the similarities and differences, Brother Dear and On Boy Trouble characterize the importance of having the courage to express ourselves in order to challenge the narrow views isolating each person into a basic set of traits and attributes. The works of Bernice Friesen and Margaret

A person’s identity is unique from another individual’s and is shaped by a plethora of aspects, some being family, friends, culture, personal interests, environment, and society. These aspects all come together to influence a person’s identity, some having a more powerful impact on an individual than others. However, when a person is put into an environment or situation in which their perceived identity does not match those of their environment or society, the individual is now in isolation from his or her surroundings. During isolation, a person may struggle to find their true identity or remain true to their identity. This phenomenon is perfectly shown in the novels Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley,

Within dystopian literature, identity is something that can be seen as an individual’s most core and precious element. Exposed against a scarcity of freedom in self-expression, we can begin to fully appreciate and understand the importance in the role of identity as well as its robustness. The role of identity and its manipulation is often explored within dystopian literature to exemplify weaknesses in human psychology as well as to destroy false images of strength and superiority that we apply to ourselves. In both The Road and

The way a person views themself is often very different from the way they are viewed by other people. Both protagonists believe that how they perceived themselves was reflected in other people minds. In Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield and Identities by W.D. Valgardson, the authors create irony, develop the characters perspectives, and the use their resolutions to portray that the identities we prescribe to ourselves and others differ from reality, and often one only learns this through the world with which we interact.

Allowing the perception of others on your own identity to influence how you see yourself is a tribulation young adolescents face. In the novel, Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, Ellison highlights the struggles the main character, the “Invisible Man (IM)”, faces when it comes to the division between how he distinguishes himself and how the people in his life distinguish him. This causes a lack of self-established identity within the Invisible Man and throughout the course of the novel, various factors cause the Invisible Man to rethink how he makes out his identity. Ellison makes a point about how racism goes hand and hand with the identity of the Invisible Man and that this is an aspect of the Invisible Man’s life that poses the largest burden