Identity, Fictitious History, And Personal Meaning

How a country is designed and subsequently populated will have an indelible impression on the joint psychology of that country's population. The people's understanding of themselves as a country will also affect how that nation presents itself to the rest of the world. Much of this will have to do with the country's concepts of nation, nationalism, and community. A nation is a socially-constructed concept dealing with the country itself as well as the population in the lands of that country. Nationalism, on the other hand, is a political principle which deals with the joint consciousness of that nation, including their shared targets of antagonism and satisfaction (Gelner 2006). All countries are affected by their concepts of nation and nationalism, and also by their sense of constancy and community. The history of any given nation will have an indelible impact on the way that the nation constructs itself and develops in the present and also into the future. This is particularly true of a nation which has a history filled with negative perception and has tried to evolve from that primary function. Every nation will invariably develop a unique culture which will be born of the ethnicity and religion of the people who inhabit a given community. Australia has become linked to the concept of an imagined community. Social critic Benedict Anderson coined this phrase by defining an imagined community as one in which there is not innate sense of

Some battles are more important than other’s like the one the character endures eternally. British literature as a whole pertains a lot of literary elements. But within these stories the most prominent is identity. A soul searching journey for one’s identity can begin at any stage of one’s life. The universal, time-transcendent idea of identity within British Literature attests to the human need for self knowledge, as it can be seen in the novels in Frankenstein, Beowulf, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

When I started to read the section on groups a term came to mind “imagined communities”. In the book it defines a group as consisting “of two or more people, united by a shared sense of identity or purpose, who interact with each other over time in ways that distinguish them from outsiders” (Witt, 2016, p. 101). The concept of an imagined community looks to analyze nationalism and what better example of nationalism can we analyze than the 2016 election? Donald Trump broke away from the normal Republican party platform and ran on a nationalist platform instead. In the article he speaks on Trump’s rise to nationalism. Trump fueled his campaign with rhetoric of nationalism, playing on our doubts of globalization. Trump was trying to bring together

Whether it is gender, sexuality, religion, race, ethnicity or nationality people’s self-concept is structured around multiple identifiers. Depending on context some identifiers are more predominant than others, however, these identities enable people the ability to understand and differentiate themselves from others. While all identities are important, a crucial dimension of identity often dismissed as a major contributor to self-individuality is national identity (Baldwin, 157). Partaking in a culture, society or community for a length of time the recognition of nationalism begins to diminish. The constant participation of a nationality becomes the “norm” and it is not until withdrawn from a nation that the acknowledgement of national identity occurs. Speaking from personal experience, my national identity had never been as dominant than my time spent studying abroad in the London. While I identified as an American, I never felt American until I came overseas. Customs, language, and practices were foreign to me and fitting into the culture was a learning process. In order to feel as though I belong somewhere in this new community, I found security in identifying with and as an American. Simply, I developed an imagined community to reconnect with my home country. When place in situations where exclusion from people’s nation occurs finding comradeship through imagined communities reproduces the sense of belonging, but also alter one’s self-understanding by unveiling an

National identity is an institution that brings the sense of belonging to a nation and a belief in their political aspirations. This involves a high demand of freedom through sovereignty and involves a large demand for equality. National identity can occasionally develop from ethnic identities and is inherently political. For example, an ethnic identity can provoke ideas against already existing political systems in which their members believe that they are lacking certain rights and freedoms. This interaction between ethnic and national identity is present in many countries in which an ethnicity gains a

Discussions about the nature of personal identity are often based on the belief that identity is the result of our moral values, which subsequently inform our actions and colour our experiences. Moral values, however, are never created in a void, but are themselves a reaction to specific events that in leaving their mark on us, have influenced us in some way. What could some of these influences be? In this brief study of the novels The Kite Runner and Mister Pip, I will attempt to show that elements such as an individual’s relationships, ethnicity, and important life events all combine over time to create the personal identity of the protagonists.

followed the trail, and more imprortantly, Nate. I looked around me, tall trees surrounded me and again, I felt like a little girl.

My chosen particular aspect that I have analyzed to be found to have significant connections between my four chosen texts is identity. I have perceived this theme of identity through four different films of Gattaca, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Catch Me If You Can and V for Vendetta. Through these films I have formed three questions off of my theme identity analyzed: What was the effect of identity on the people around the protagonist what drove the protagonists to obtain a new identity? What was identity’s effect on the protagonists themselves?

In his work about nested identities, David Knight proposed understanding the concept of identity from a territorial perspective, in terms of the relationship with the geography and space in which people acquire specific attributes in distinction to others. Territory, he said, is what solidifies identity as opposed to memory or feelings (Knight, 1999, p. 317). In this fashion, people produced in Tijuana, with the practice of cross-border consumption, a binational territory where the border did not exist, which nested a local identity with both strong nationalistic and hybrid components, very distinctive

John Downing and Charles Husband (2005) discuss the nature of ethnicity to state that it has a personal and collective aspect, and that is influenced by the social interaction and the political mobilization.

Although storytelling, narrative memory, and autobiographical/narrative identity appear in nearly every human community, (and though no exceptions come to mind, I use the word “nearly” to leave open the possibility), the narrative patterns and focus of the remembered event vary from culture to culture and from person to person within each culture. Individual variation, particularly in the complexity of life stories and the variety of plot types employed may be linked to Loevinger’s concept of ego development (Loevinger 1976). According to McAdams (McAdams 2003), Loevinger discovered that people with greater ego development applied more nuanced explanations to assign meaning to their experiences while those with lower levels of ego development

Many ambiguities surround the establishment, formation, and retention of a national identity. To what extent can a national identity be individualized? Does every individual, regardless of origin, possess the ability

As a person matures and develops over their lifespan, their sense of identity is constantly evolving. Regardless, if their outlook on life is optimistic or not, people yearn for those feelings of fulfillment and wanting to have served a purpose in the world. While some people believe that they have found their niche early in life, the rest are often still on the fence about where they belong and who their “true” selves are. Nevertheless, one cannot help but wonder what purpose does having an identity serve if societal influences continuously seeks to transform it. Literary authors like Franz Kafka have spent most of their lives trying to find the answer to this and relay it in such a way for their readers to understand it in their works.

The summary is well-written and informative, including the purpose of the study, who the participants are, the methods, and the results. However, the summary lacks the general implications of the study, such as why participants either align or distance themselves from national identity. The result section includes a thick description of how FNSs project their identities by either referring to their home country or detach themselves completely from their national identities. In the conclusion, the author does not give any suggestions or directions for future research.

A true understanding of one's identity is discovered through one’s experience. Entering high school, many students did not know who they were or what they stood for. Throughout high school, students often just follow trends or their peers in their environment. They participate within the cycle of socialization without even realizing it. Perhaps, it is the fear of being different or the fear of being outcasted that the youth decide to conform to society. It takes great measures to fight against socialization and fight for individual and societal liberation. It is through this fight that one truly develops a sense of identity and what their values and beliefs are. The works of literature we went through this year had characters that went