“If You Want To Know Me, You Must Know My Story, For My

Good morning/Afternoon, I’m Tarryn and today I’m going to talk to you about personal identity. Identity is what makes us who we are, everyone has a different identity. Without identity we wouldn’t be human because everyone needs one to exist. Our identity is changing as we progress through life and as we experience new and different things. The texts that I’ve looked at are “Frankenstein”, the graphic novel by Gris Grimly, published in 2013, is an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s original text, about a scientist who creates a ‘monster’ who he’s ashamed of and leaves the ‘monster’ with no knowledge of anything about himself or the world. My second text is “Edward Scissorhands”, a film directed by Tim Burton and released in 1990, which is about a man created by a scientist who dies before he can entirely finish his creation and must live his life with scissors as hands. From these texts, I am going to be talking about how our journey through life changes our identity and how others can affect our identity.

Interactions between people are never ending. The effects of one conversation could affect the outcome of that person’s life, consequently changing their identity completely. There comes a time, though, when dealing with others confident in their identities, where one must ask themselves the personal question of “who am I?”. No matter if you’ve just stumbled upon this question, in the process of discovering the answer, consistently changing your answer, or confident in your answer, the people around you are the ones you have to thank for molding your personal identity.

When one talks about personal identity is often based on the prevailing belief that identity is constructed by morality, which forms within oneself. Although this is true, to create morality, one must look to outside influences. Using the novels, the Kite Runner and Mister Pip it can be proven that relationships, ethnicity, and important life events create a personal identity.

Identity plays an important role in a person’s life. It determines how a person lives, acts, communicates, and defines themselves in the world around them. During this semester, we have read a handful of short stories that have to do with an individual’s identity. Three of those stories include, “The Metamorphosis,” by Franz Kafka; “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” by Herman Melville; and “Orientation,” by Daniel Orozco. Each of these short stories gives examples of how your work can influence a person’s identity and attempt to remove the personal factor from everyday life.

Stories of our lives Have you ever pondered on how our life stories reflect on our identity? This question will make anyone think about how their actions give sight on what they believe in or what their morals are. The struggles in someone's life is part of their life's story. How they deal with their struggles gives others a view of their identity.

This reading from “The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self” by Dan P. McAdams was a rather lengthy, though somewhat quick, read. McAdams makes several points worth mentioning that I will break down by chapter/section. The main point of the preface is to introduce the main idea of the book: identity is a life story that we develop through personal myth (5). In order to know someone’s identity, you must know what it is that provides his/her life with meaning, unity, and purpose (6). In the introduction, McAdams defines ‘personal myth’ as “a special kind of story that each of us naturally constructs to bring together the differing parts of ourselves and our lives into a purposeful and convincing whole” (12).

Humans are bound to make mistakes during these critical decisions that affect both relationships and them as individuals; as a result people are regretful about their identity. Sooner or later people arrive at a point in life where they want to reassess themselves, indicating the theme of Rethinking Identity that is associated with search for an identity, which

English Final Essay: Identity In our contemporary, we have the choice and the luxury to decide who and what we want to be. Identity is a topic of great importance in some of our stories. Although, it is represented in a different way. So we get to ask ourselves: Can we actually create our own roles and identity?

Everyone has a story of how great an astonishing their life has come to be like getting a chance to travel the world, getting awards being popular, or even helping out in the community. Well, to be honest, that's not me and this is my story. My name Rebecca Alexandra Gomez I arrived into this world on October 7, 1998 around 11:25 AM at the Humber River regional hospital in Toronto. I lived in Toronto for about three years of my life than from there I moved to Brampton. I was raised by my beautiful parents Lorena Gomez and Guillermo Gomez I have two older siblings Tatiana Gomez Who is currently 24 years old and my brother Christopher Gomez who is 22 years old growing up I can say that my childhood was a very special moment

There is a lot of different aspects to a person’s identity. The valuable information people have gathered and constructed throughout their lives to become unique individuals. The way others see people and a lot of different aspects bring out a personal identity. In this essay, I will be addressing some of the ways that Dawnette Hedge came to be herself and have particular identities. The steps and processes she has created and others have influenced, that have helped her create her identity through, relationships, empathy, emotions, and divorce.

Americans today tend to believe that each individual has their own distinct personality that represents who they are in the society. When it comes to the topic of identity, most of us will readily agree that Jay Gatsby and Forrest Gump’s identities changed through the lifetime. The changes in their identities bring huge differences in how they view themselves in love, wealth, social status, and friendship. Where this argument usually ends, however, is on the question of do we change our identity on purpose. Whereas The Great Gatsby is convinced that individuals can create their identities with strong efforts, Forrest Gump maintains that even if individuals don’t have self-reflective thinking, their identities can still shift, but both show

According to Erikson, the development of the lifespan is a lifelong process from birth to death and includes the formation of identity (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010). I will cover in the paper six life events that influence my identity development from childhood to middle adulthood. Each life event will be explained based on the significance of the event as well as the impact the event had on my development. Also, theories will be discussed as they relate to my development.

All throughout our lives, we wrestle with the question of who am I and what do I want in life? However, it is usually during the adolescent years that this issue really comes to a head and we begin a more earnest search into finding ourselves and deciding the direction we want to take with our lives. One of the theorists who studied this idea of identity formation was James Marcia. Marcia proposed that there were four different stages or statuses in the development of identity which he labeled Identity Diffusion, Identity Foreclosure, Identity Moratorium, and Identity Achievement. In this essay, we will briefly summarize his four different stages and then apply his theory to my own identity development during the adolescent years.

Our autobiographical narratives also support the construction of identity, by using cultural models of self narration as well as drawing on our own experiences, who we associate with, when and where, all have an impact on how we tell our stories (Hewitt, 2007). This serves in understanding how identities are fluid and are always changing from situation to situation, an aspect which anyone from the psychosocial school of thought

Giving an Account of Oneself, a compelling piece of work written by Judith Butler, digs deep into what it means to give an account of oneself and how it is nearly, if not entirely, impossible to do such an activity without becoming “a social theorist” (Butler 8). Butler states “the story of my origin I tell is not one for which I am accountable, and it cannot establish my accountability,” (Butler 37) since the story is always changing. We are not able to give our accounts as the accounts we give will always be told in different lights and we, as beings, are always changing as the norms around us change. The sense of being ties into us not being the same person we were when we came into being, and nor are we the same being as when we begin to tell the story of our origin of being. However, other notable influences, such as Levinas, believe that fully exposing our origin of being would act as a sort of “surplus” (Levinas 79) meaning those we expose our origin of being to will be so overwhelmed with the situation that we would never be able to give an account of ourselves overall. Levinas’ views coincides with Butlers’ on the topic of norms and how we will never be able to act outside of norms when he states, “the moment I realize that the terms by which I confer recognition are not mine alone… I am, as it were, disposed by the language that I offer” (Levinas 26).