Identity And Personal Identity

Everyone in the world has their own identity but some are still searching for it. Many base their identity on race, religion, culture and language because it’s easier to belong to a certain group. However, there are some people who struggle with finding where they belong. For instance, James McBride in The Color of Water wonders who he is through most his childhood and some of his adult life. Mcbride tries to find himself by learning about his mother's background. After evaluating his mom’s past,culture and race his own issues with himself were made clearer because now he finally knows where he came from.

When he had first started going to school he had noticed that all the kids looked at him weird for him being a different color than everyone else as well as the kids and their parents looked the same. It made him feel awkward since he thought of himself as different than his mother because they weren’t the same color. James had stated in his book, “I asked her if I was black or white. She replied "You are a human being. Educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!” (12). While James was going through an identity crisis at an early age, things only got worse for

Despite never visiting Suffolk before, James, as an adult, feels a connection to the city of Suffolk. A part of who James is resides in Suffolk, and in an attempt to find himself, James went there to retrieve it. When introspecting the way his mind works, James thinks “My view of the world is not merely that of a black man but that of a black man with something of a Jewish soul.” (McBride 103) and “Now, as a grown man, I feel privileged to have come from two worlds.” (McBride 103). James doesn’t feel a connection to Suffolk, he feels a connection to Judaism as a whole. He appreciates that he’s seen “two worlds” and acknowledges that the man he is was shaped by both of his clashing cultures.

No matter how much a person desires to live according to their personal autonomy, he or she will never escape the influence of societal forces. Explicitly or subtlety, these forces shape our individuality. One intriguing manner that these societal forces manifests itself in is our name. As Ruth Graham writes, “It’s becoming increasingly clear today that names carry a wealth of information about the world around us, the family we arrived in, the moment we were born—and that they mark us as part of cultural currents bigger than we realize.” Names alone provide evidence that individuals are made by interactions with social institutions and groups. Ultimately, the inescapable nature of society’s influence demands individuals to ponder how much personal autonomy is actually autonomous and to what extent does the pursuit of personal autonomy lead to a life of emptiness and vanity.

James is confused and does not know how to choose between writing and music and also whether to identify himself as black or white. An example of him overcoming this situation is when he says “there are two worlds bursting inside me trying to get out. I had to find out who I was and in order to find out who I was, I had to find out who my mother was” (266). This is important because James wants to know what the right decision to make is. He wants to make the decision that will make him find his path in life and make him happy and successful. At the end James chooses both careers and identifies himself as biracial, which makes him feel

The Color of Water Final Essay Growing up in this community, I never doubted or asked questions about who I was and where I came from. On the other hand, James McBride really struggled with his identity throughout the book, The Color of Water written by James McBride. As you see James mature and grow older, you can see his perspective of himself and his life slowly change throughout time. James’s perspective of his identity was impacted by questioning his race, the people he surrounded himself with, and a Jewish friend to open his eyes.

Their skin was black and hers was white. He constantly wondered why his and his siblings’ skin was a different color than their mother’s. When he asked his mother if she was white, she would just simply tell him that she was light-skinned and then she would immediately change the subject because she did not want to discuss it with him. His brothers and sisters would often tease him and told him that he was adopted because of his curiosity. James wondered if they were telling the truth because he looks nothing like his mother. He knew without a doubt that all of his brothers and sisters were different shades of brown and that his mother was white. In fact, he was pretty sure that his mother was white, but she refused to admit that she was. Since his mother denied being white, he was baffled and did not know if he was a black or white person. Because of his uncertainty, he was unsure of how he fit into society. While growing up, I did not share James’s confusion about my skin color. I was not the least bit confused about my race because my family and most of the people that surrounded me consisted of white people. Although, I was aware that people had different colors of skin, I did not question my identity and why my skin color was different from theirs.

There are many factors that shape us into who we are, and who we will become. Some of these factors we can control, while others we cannot. While we are born into many traits of our identities, much of our other behavior is learned. My identity, for example, is “based not only on responses to the question ‘Who am I?’ but also on responses to the question ‘Who am I in relation to others?’” (Allen, 2011, p. 11). My identity and the question of who I am, are both influenced by many aspects of my life, including my hometown, my family, my friends, and my beliefs and moral values.

Little Bee and Sarah’s development of a full identity perfectly characterizes this, while Andrew’s downward slump into depression and ultimate suicide conveys the effects of not gaining a full identity. People, in order to gain hope, should strive to gain a full identity by maintaining a strong sense of

Personal identity is essential in the human experience. Identity is complex and can be broken down into two main groups: introspective identity, and bodily identity. Introspective identity is based off of the groups, mentalities, or beliefs that you align yourself with, and bodily identity is based off of the physical side of yourself. Whether physical or introspective, your identity impacts every action you take. Whether choices ranging from what colors you prefer to which college you want to attend are primarily based off of your introspective identity, which is a combination of both memory and consciousness, physical identity impacts how others perceive you. Consciousness is mainly the awareness of bodily identity as well as continuous introspective identify, while memory is awareness of introspective identity. These two different facets of identity are imperative in the distinction between bodily identity and introspective identity. In means of personal identity introspective identity (which is evident in memory), is essential, while bodily identity (based partially in consciousness) has less credit.

1. Any theory of personal identity should be able to solve two problems: first, the problem of individuation; second, the problem of continuity or persistence. How would you in your own words characterize these problems? Also, do these problems matter at all? Are they actually important? Why or why not?

My purpose is to show my individuality and to express myself. This is for others including myself, to see and to remind us that our identity is very complex.

Everybody has an identity, it makes them individual and unique, and it defines who you are as a person. This project about my identity showed me what makes me unique. I would have never known how much my friends mean to me or how my identities connect with each other. I have three identities that make me who I am, cultural, personal, and social. A specific quality that covers my cultural identity is being Czechoslovakian. Both sides of my family have at least a part of Czech in them. My great-grandparents are from Czech Republic and my grandpa was the first generation in America, he was born in Ohio. This is very important because I have always identified as Czech and it is a big part of me, as I am so interested in ancestry. For my personal identity, the biggest part is my personality, being loud and outgoing, has always been important to me. The reason being, it is how people view me. A lot of people know me as the loud person or the person who talks a lot. That is meaningful to me considering I like people to view me in a certain way The last identity, social, is one of the most important to me because it involves my friends, and through this project, I learned how vital they really are to my social identity. I realized that I have a good amount of friends in this project. It is nice to have people as a support system and to relate with. These qualities show that I value being loud and outgoing. It also says that I value my family and they are a big part of life. The last one, social, ties in with the first one because it shows I am outgoing and friendly.

Many people question themselves, what is it exactly that makes them unique? What is it that defines them as a unique person that no one in the world possesses? In philosophy, these questions do not have just one answer, and all answers are correct depending on which theory appeals most and makes sense to you. In general, there are two ways people approach this question, some say that a person’s identity is the “self” that carries all of their experiences, thoughts, memories, and consciousness (ego theorists), and some say that a person’s identity is just a bundle of experiences and events that a person has been through in their life, these people deny that the “self” exists (bundle theorists). In this paper, I will be arguing that a person’s identity is just a bundle of experiences, denying the self and the memory criterion.

While childhood seemed like a breeze, my adolescent years were anything but that. Adolescence, the transition between childhood and adulthood beginning with puberty, is a time full of physical and psychological changes both positive and negative. During this time individuals are in search of their identity, a task that can yield a lot of confusion. The question of who am I lingers in the back of adolescent minds and the answer anything but simple. This struggle for an identity and one’s place in society can lead to stress. Through exploration and soul searching, however, one might find their identity. For me, this question seemed impossible to answer, however, I always had a strong desire to fit in and be liked by others. Reading through the different developmental theories in the text, I started to compare them to events in my own life and noticed many significant similarities.