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Essay on identity question
Theory of identity essay
Theory of identity essay
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Hybridity in Ezekiel Mphahlele's Down Second Avenue
The criticism that Mphahlele's awareness of his being a "hybrid' person imparts an inability to his being able to "write his story himself " is a criticism contrived out of literal derivations of the Greek components of the word "autobiography". The textual landscape of Down Second Avenue includes many varied and detailed arenas, the rural setting and its many dimensions, the city and its many dimensions. In the sense that autobiography is part of the genre of biography in the postclassical European tradition, that being the life accounts of saints and princes, the criticism is perhaps true to some extent. However, in the aspect of the autobiography being a search for identity and hybridity being the essence of Down Second Avenue, it is hybridity per se that is the author's story.
A genre is works classified in terms of shared characteristics. 1
In studying the advent of autobiography as a genre in its own right, it would seem to be a particularly modern form of literature, a hybrid form of biography. Also, the distinctions between the forms of the biography, personal history or diary and novel are becoming questioned in that the autobiography is not an account of wisdom accumulated in a lifetime but a defining of identity. 2
The word "hybrid" is usually used in conjunction with genetic analysis of plants. A hybrid in its biological context is sometimes a sterile offshoot.
Hybrid can be defined as "mixed ancestry" As a word; "hybrid" carries denotations of the physical as well as the metaphysical. In Down second Avenue, Mphahlele examines both a hybrid society, that being South Africa 1930- 50 as well as its composite sub-societies, extensively hybrid within themselves. Mphahlele's awareness of having a mixed ancestry is rooted in more than one dichotomy. His rural identity is opposed to his urban identity, his vocation as a teacher/academic is opposed to his employment as a messenger boy, his introspective nature opposed to his being member of a gang. His acute understanding of South African society is ironic in his feeling liberated in departing from it. It is in hybridity that Mphahlele's identity resides.
Mphahlele sequentially chronicles the story of his own life from early childhood to his departure from the country to take up a teaching post in Nigeria. Throughout Down Second Avenue, Mphahlele expresses a feeling of powerlessness and sterility until he embarks upon leaving the country.
Within this existential consideration, Richardson (2000) finds autoethnography as a writing style - combining the readable style of autobiography into the ethnographic approach - which may produce something that will make it off the shelf. If relevant research is what is intended to be produced, then its readability must be a primary
I began a study of autobiography and memoir writing several years ago. Recently I discovered two poets who believe that recording one’s place in history is integral to their art. Carol Muske and Joy Harjo are renowned poets who explore the intricacies of self in regards to cultural and historical place. Muske specifically addresses the poetics of women poets, while Harjo addresses the poetics of minority, specifically Native American, writers. Both poets emphasize the autobiographical nature of poetry. Muske and Harjo regard the self as integral to their art. In this representation of self, Muske and Harjo discuss the importance of truth-telling testimony and history in their poetics. Muske says, “…testimony exists to confront a world beyond the self and the drama of the self, even the world of silence—or the unanswerable…” (Muske 16).
When I decide to read a memoir, I imagine sitting down to read the story of someone’s life. I in vision myself learning s...
In George Steiner’s “The Uncommon Reader” he explains, “Reading, here, is no haphazard, unpremeditated motion. It is a courteous, almost a courtly encounter, between a private person and one of those ‘high guests” (189). It’s the deliberate devourment of the ideas of such a “high guest,” or in this case, an author with variant experiences from our own, which serve to highlight our own self-realization. Steiner’s conception of an encounter, however, can be defined as anything which serves to compel an observer and bring forth his own ideas into new form, and can also be described through an indication of where a concept is actually happening. In the end, the environment is as important (if not more important, depending on the circumstance) as what is being studied. In Charles Baudelaire’s “To a Passerby,” he provides a glimpse at this analysis, through his documentation of a woman he had never met
The central figures in these three works are all undoubtedly flawed, each one in a very different way. They may have responded to their positions in life, or the circumstances in which they find themselves may have brought out traits that already existed. Whichever applies to each individual, or the peculiar combination of the two that is specific to them, it effects the outcome of their lives. Their reaction to these defects, and the control or lack of it that they apply to these qualities, is also central to the narrative that drives these texts. The exploration of the characters of these men and their particular idiosyncrasies is the thread that runs throughout all of the works.
Toronto: Bantam Books, 1987. Print. The. Peterson, Linda H. "'The Feelings and Claims of Little People: Heroic Missionary Memoirs, Domestic(ated) Spiritual Autobiography, and Jane Eyre: An Autobiography." Traditions of Victorian Women's Autobiography: The Poetics and Politics of Life Writing.
“In my estimation a good book first must contain little or no trace of the author unless the author himself is a character. That is, when I read the book I should not feel that someone is telling me the story but t...
In the story “Two Kinds”, the author, Amy Tan, intends to make reader think of the meaning behind the story. She doesn’t speak out as an analyzer to illustrate what is the real problem between her and her mother. Instead, she uses her own point of view as a narrator to state what she has experienced and what she feels in her mind all along the story. She has not judged what is right or wrong based on her opinion. Instead of giving instruction of how to solve a family issue, the author chooses to write a narrative diary containing her true feeling toward events during her childhood, which offers reader not only a clear account, but insight on how the narrator feels frustrated due to failing her mother’s expectations which leads to a large conflict between the narrator and her mother.
Through this sympathetic faculty, a writer is able to give flesh, authenticity and a genuine perspective to the imagined. It is only in this manner that the goal of creating living beings may be realized. Anything short of this becomes an exercise in image and in Kundera’s words, produces an immoral novel (3). The antithesis of liv... ...
Written stories differ in numerous ways, but most of them have one thing in common; they all have a narrator that, on either rare occasions or more regularly, help to tell the story. Sometimes, the narrator is a vital part of the story since without him or her, it would not be possible to tell the story in the same way, and sometimes, the narrator has a very small role in the story. However, he or she is always there, and to compare how different authors use, and do not use, this outside perspective writing tool, a comparison between Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno, Henry James’ Daisy Miller, and David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly will be done.
In Ralph Ellison’s novel The Invisible man, the unknown narrator states “All my life I had been looking for something and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was…I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself the question which I, and only I, could answer…my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself. But first I had to discover that I am an invisible man!” (13). throughout the novel, the search for identity becomes a major aspect for the narrator’s journey to identify who he is in this world. The speaker considers himself to be an “invisible man” but he defines his condition of being invisible due to his race (Kelly). Identity and race becomes an integral part of the novel. The obsession with identity links the narrator with the society he lives in, where race defines the characters in the novel. Society has distinguished the characters in Ellison’s novel between the African and Caucasian and the narrator journey forces him to abandon the identity in which he thought he had to be reborn to gain a new one. Ellison’s depiction of the power struggle between African and Caucasians reveals that identity is constructed to not only by the narrator himself but also the people that attempt to influence. The modernized idea of being “white washed” is evident in the narrator and therefore establishes that identity can be reaffirmed through rebirth, renaming, or changing one’s appearance to gain a new persona despite their race. The novel becomes a biological search for the self due through the American Negroes’ experience (Lillard 833). Through this experience the unknown narrator proves that identity is a necessary part of his life but race c...
Being different can sometimes be somewhat scary because one may be considered an outcast. Being an outcast can be quite difficult especially when people can be cruel. In the short story “The Salamander,” the narrator is considered an outcast because she is different and does not follow society’s norms. The author from this short story, Mercè Rodoreda, can be compared to the narrator because she too did not follow the norms. Rodoreda’s short story includes some aspects that can be compared to her life, yet many other aspects in her story are inexplicable. “The Salamander” by Mercè Rodoreda can be described as a fantastic story because of the fantastic elements it contains, such as hesitation and liminality. The short story fits well into Todorov’s definition of the fantastic because it creates hesitation for the readers when the narrator experiences rebirth and it includes several examples of liminality. Liminality can be seen when the defined lines between human and animal, and life and death are blurred.
This personal narrative is attained only because of the important role History plays in tying these factors together. In order for one to relate identity to difference using the dialogical method, he/she must “position [themselves] somewhere in order to say anything at all.” This position is attained through an understanding of history; a history which...
A narrative is constructed to elicit a particular response from its audience. In the form of a written story, authors use specific narrative strategies to position the ‘ideal reader’ to attain the intended understanding of the meanings in the text. Oliver Sacks’ short story The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is an unusual short story because it does not display conventional plot development; the story does not contain conflict or resolution of conflict. The genre of the story is also difficult to define because it reads as an autobiographical account of an experience Sacks had with a patient while working as a neurologist. Although it is arguable that the narrative is a work of non-fiction, it is nevertheless a representation, distinct from a reflection of the real events. It is a construction, Sacks chose the elements that were included and omitted in the narrative and used narrative strategies to position readers to process the signs in the text and produce reach the dominant understanding. This blurring of truth and fiction is similar to that in the genre of ‘new journalism’. Although, rather than being a journalist writing a fictional piece of journalism, Sacks is a doctor writing a fictional medical analysis. To influence readers’ comprehension of the narrative, Sacks utilised the point of view strategy of subjective narration, atypical in this short story in that a characterisation or representation of Oliver Sacks is the narrator and Oliver Sacks the person is the real author. The story is character-driven rather than plot-driven and regardless of how accurate a depiction of the real people the characters are, they are constructions. Sacks gave the characters of Doctor P. and his namesake admirable and sympathetic trait...
An individual’s identity is shaped through a complex interaction between past and present circumstances which form the basis of one’s values and attitudes (stuff to add: effective textual reflection of this struggle for identity (as a universal human concern) within literature is what elevates certain works above the boundaries of context and allows them to tap into and resonate with the general human consciousness). Orson Welles’ revolutionary film Citizen Kane (1941) examines the psychologically damaging effects of parental neglect and the morally corruptive impacts of an unchecked pursuit for power and influence. However, the prevailing notion posited through the film is that the subjectivity of human experiences negates an absolute holistic