Identity In The 19th Century

If you could revisit any moment in your life and change the decision you made, would your identity be any different? Could your identity, the values and beliefs you hold, be altered or erased by one drastic event? One novel, which explores the development one’s identity is Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo. Galloway clearly explores identity through the three main characters of the novel; Alisa, Kenan, and Dragan, conveying a clear lesson about hope through the experiences of the three characters. Though the conflicts from the siege cause them all to deviate from their personalities before the siege, they eventually all revert to their original personalities, regaining their identities.

Stuart Hall defines identity as an ‘already accomplished fact, which the new cultural practices then represent’. We should think instead of ‘identity as a ‘production’ which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation’ (Hall 1994 p.392). An individual’s sense of belonging to a particular group, thinking, feelings and behaviour can also be referred to as identity. One’s cultural image can construct identity; such features as hair, skin tone and height. History shapes our identity.

Identity can mean different things to different people, but for most people, it’s about one’s personality and experiences. The 21st century has seen young people in various parts of the globe have a preference for some desired identity, which they deem superior, rather than accept their own identities. For example, in Goin Gangsta, Choosin Cholista: Claiming Identity, Neil Bernstein makes a case on how a number of people have claimed ethnic individualities other than their own and this is not an evil obsession (Bernstein, 1995). In this essay, a girl named April and her friends (and by extension most young people) believe that “identity is not a matter of where you come from, what you were born into, or what colour your skin is, but it’s everything

Our identities are key to our understanding of the world. Mental models through which information is processed are built off of life experience, taught ethics and morals, and upbringing. Identity is discussed in the following texts - The Politics of Exile by Elizabeth Dauphinee, “Unlearning the Myth of American Innocence” by Suzy Hansen, and “Letter to America” by Aida Hozic - through various themes of American culture. Dauphinee, in particular, examines the depth of personal identity and its ability to change. All three works consider the many components of personal identity and its formation as well as its undoing.

     Through our readings of the Mexicans in the U.S. and the African-American experience modules, we begin to understand the formation of identity through the hardships minorities faced from discrimination. In this paper, I am going to compare and contrast the ideas of identity shown through the readings. These two modules exemplify the theme of identity. We see how Blacks and Latinos tried to find their identity both personally and as a culture through the forced lifestyles they had to live.

Caws, Peter. "Identity: Cultural, Transcultural and Multicultural." Multiculturalism. A Critical Reader. David Theo Goldberg,Ed. Malden, Massachusetts:Blackwell Publishers. 1994 371-386.

One’s identity is the most important part about them. Without one’s identity, there is nothing about them that makes them who they are. This is why the struggle to find one’s identity is one of the hardest struggles to take place within someone. Because the struggle to find one’s identity can be so difficult, a lot of writers today have used this motif in their books, as this has become a topic many readers can relate to. A book that highlights this topic very much is “The House on Mango Street”, by Sandra Cisneros. This book is about a young girl named Esperanza, who moves to a new house and a new community, and struggles with finding her identity and fitting in the community. The book is written in a series of vignettes, or small poems

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

“Imagine there’s No Heaven” is a letter written by Salman Rushdie who is a British Indian novelist and essayist. He is an atheist and is known for his unflinching criticism of religion. Rushdie contributed this letter to a UN-sponsored anthology, addressed to the six-billionth human child who was expected to be born that year. He attempts to discuss and answer two fundamental questions of life. “How did we get here? And, now that we are here, how shall we live?” However he diverts from his central thesis and most of his text malign and smear all religions while the two questions go almost completely unanswered. His tone is demeaning, scornful and he presents religious beliefs as being ridiculous. He makes absolute statements without any

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

Each individual possesses an identity that makes him or her unique in their own special way. This identity is considered a marker that helps define and shape the person, even as they develop by means of age or wisdom. In addition to that, various factors, such as ethnicity, gender, religion, language, or culture, contribute to establishing one’s identity. Although each identity is different, Andrew Solomon acknowledges another difference amongst one’s identity. This difference depends on whether someone encompasses a horizontal identity or a vertical identity.

Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer once stated, “Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.” This was a problem faced by Salman Rushdie. After years of suffering from writers block, he overcame his obstacles and published "Haroun and the Sea of Stories". It is not only a story for his son, but a proclamation of the triumph of the writer over the oppressive forces that sought to silence him. When read literally, the resolution of "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" is the defeat of Khattam-Shud as dictator. However, Rushdie’s true resolution is the conquest of freedom of speech over oppression. This is seen in how the characters’

In recent years, identity has been open to discussion and reflection. One's identity has now been subject to change. There are still major cultural categories of identity, for example:

The postcolonial era presents various issues for the decolonized nations, like the reconstruction of a government and the maintenance of an economy. In addition to that, the individual identity of the colonized people is a complex issue that they must cope with as well, and it is an issue that is still present today. Compared to the other issues of postcolonialism, the construction of one’s identity might appear trivial; however, there are many problems of postcolonial identity, including the obligation of one to perceive themselves as people do from the outside through stereotypes, and the difficulty of unifying two conflicting identities: one that is created by outside sources, and one that is created through personal experiences.

A nation is a group of people who share common history, culture, language and ethnic origin often possessing or seeking its own government. National identity refers to the distinguish features of group and to the individual’ sense of belonging to it. In some case even a little difference in pronunciation is enough to categorize a person as a member of different nation but in some cases two people may be separated by language, culture, geographical location etc categorized in