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True Identity
“The Bear That Wasn’t,” a short story by Frank Tashlin, is about a bear that hibernates in his cave and wakes up under a factory. Factories cover his once beautiful forest and people he doesn’t know surround him. Everyone thinks that he is one of the factory workers when he really is just a bear. The story demonstrates the bear’s perception of his identity and the identity with which society labels him. Society sees people by what their occupation is, not by who the person really is. A person is labeled by an occupation and not by whom they truly are due to the many changes in technology that have occurred. They are known as people who work machines. A person loses his or her own identity when they become a part of society. The bear in the story faces these exact situations and problems but he remembers his true identity.
The bear loses his identity when he is introduced to society. When he wakes up, he is immediately found by the foreman and is told to get back to work. He is seen as a worker and nothing else while he really is a bear who doesn’t even belong there. They go to the General Manager, the Third Vice President, the Second Vice President, the First Vice President, and the President to prove that he is not a bear but a worker and they all say, “You’re not a bear. You’re a silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat.” They really don’t see him as a bear but as a worker. They immediately give him the title of a worker. The bear thinks that he is a bear but everyone else thinks he is a worker just because he happens to be in a factory when he wakes up. For a while he is convinced that he is a worker, but when he goes into the forest during the winter, he realizes that he is a bear and it is time for him to hibernate.
In conclusion, society identifies the bear as a worker and the bear loses his identity of being a bear when he enters it.
Ivan Glasenberg, the CEO of Glencore, once said “I stopped focusing on people being different, and started treating everyone the same way.” An authority figure refuses to acknowledge the differences in people, and treats different individuals the same way. Authoritarian figures have shut down people, mostly kids, who are different for years. Striving to reach a conformity in society, they refuse to recognize the uniqueness of every individual. Similarly, in the short story “Antaeus”, the main character, T.J., is evidently different from the rest of urban society, much to authority’s disliking. In Borden Deal’s short story “Antaeus”, the author uses the main character ,T.J., to demonstrate that when man is different from the rest of society,
By the end of the story he moves back to the farm and goes back to be a normal person once again. He no longer feels the need of acceptance from everyone because he doesn’t need to change who is in order to fit in.
Taking place in the jungle of meat packing factories during the early 1900s in Chicago, a journalist by the name of Upton Sinclair dissects the savage inner workings of America’s working class factory lifestyle. Sinclair portrayed the grim circumstance that workers faced and the exploited lives of factory workers in Chicago. He became what was then called a mudrucker; a journalist who goes undercover to see first hand the conditions they were investigating. Being in poor fortune, Sinclair was able to blend into the surrounds of the factory life with his poor grimy clothing. The undercover journalist would walk into the factory with the rest of the men, examine its conditions, and record them when he returned home. It is the worker’s conditions
There are many factors that lead to the development of an individual’s identity. Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” illustrates an extreme change in Gregor Samsa’s external identity and the overall outward effect it has on the development of his family. While James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” illustrates a young man struggling to find his identity while being pushed around by what society and his family wants him to be. Both of these characters exhibit an underlying struggle of alienation but both also demonstrate a craving for belongingness. This conflict of trying to belong to something as well as satisfying the needs of society, has directly impacted their own individuality and the lives of the people around them.
...Boyarin overcome his fear of being labeled by the society by sticking up to his morals and ethics. This shows that an individual’s fear of being labeled by the society can depend on the situations they face which shape their strategies of personal identity.
In a desperate attempt to discover his true identity, the narrator decides to go back to Wisconsin. He was finally breaking free from captivity. The narrator was filling excitement and joy on his journey back home. He remembers every town and every stop. Additionally, he admires the natural beauty that fills the scenery. In contrast to the “beauty of captivity” (320), he felt on campus, this felt like freedom. No doubt, that the narrator is more in touch with nature and his Native American roots than the white civilized culture. Nevertheless, as he gets closer to home he feels afraid of not being accepted, he says “… afraid of being looked on as a stranger by my own people” (323). He felt like he would have to prove himself all over again, only this time it was to his own people. The closer the narrator got to his home, the happier he was feeling. “Everything seems to say, “Be happy! You are home now—you are free” (323). Although he felt as though he had found his true identity, he questioned it once more on the way to the lodge. The narrator thought, “If I am white I will not believe that story; if I am Indian, I will know that there is an old woman under the ice” (323). The moment he believed, there was a woman under the ice; He realized he had found his true identity, it was Native American. At that moment nothing but that night mattered, “[he], try hard to forget school and white people, and be one of these—my people.” (323). He
...oss, but specifically in cases where the protagonists are unaware or do not desire loss of individual identity and cases where the protagonists purposefully choose to conceal individual identity by using disguises. In the progression of both stories, the former is seen less often while the latter becomes more common as both characters gradually become more aware of the differences between their individual identities and the collective identities of their surroundings along with greater authorial portrayal of the rigidity of society through necessary conformation to one collective identity. Throughout the two works, the two authors extend the concept of home beyond the conventional portrayal as merely a physical structure by giving it significance as a state where the uniqueness of individual identity can be freely expressed.
Among carpenters, it is a well-known fact that building a house upon a solid foundation is imperative. When beginning the construction of a home, the foundation is always the first step leading to success, for without it, the house will become unstable. During extreme weather, such as floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other conditions, a slight fault in the foundation of a home will most likely guarantee significant damage, if not complete destruction. Similar to a house, a person’s identity must rest upon a firm foundation; otherwise, it may not be capable of withstanding the ominous conditions of the world. When trials and burdens threaten to crumble people’s identities, their foundations must stand their ground and overcome the various tribulations. Although there are billions of inhabitants of the world, no two people share the same identity; rather, each person has unique memories, stories, events, and artifacts influencing who they have become. Some people’s identities may reflect a difficult childhood of discrimination, poverty, and hatred similar to the one described by Malcolm X in his article, “Nightmare.” Other people may associate with Katie Pederson and her article, “Identity,” in which they are defined through a simple artifact such as an identification card. In addition, numerous unfortunate people may struggle from the devastating effects of memory loss similar to those Floyd Skloot experienced, and they are helpless as their memories and identity slowly slip away from them. Still other people may find themselves desperately searching for acceptance and identity similar to the homeless man in Gina Berriault’s article, “Who Is It Can Tell Me Who I Am.” Unlike the homeless man and Malcolm X, I was fortuna...
Many people to this day still do not have a collective agreement on what is the Canadian identity? Depending whom you ask you may get a wide variety of answer spanning the spectrum of possibilities, more so now, than at any point of the history of our nation. This essay will investigate how Pierre Elliott Trudeau found himself as a Canadian, and will demonstrate how it is his surroundings in which he immersed himself that shaped who he became. It is only later in his life that he truly discovered himself as well as his identity. Through the use of John English's biography as our primary reference we will investigate the development in Trudeau's character as he becomes older and experiences turning points in his life.
In his 1971 paper “Personal Identity”, Derek Parfit posits that it is possible and indeed desirable to free important questions from presuppositions about personal identity without losing all that matters. In working out how to do so, Parfit comes to the conclusion that “the question about identity has no importance” (Parfit, 1971, p. 4.2:3). In this essay, I will attempt to show that Parfit’s thesis is a valid one, with positive implications for human behaviour. The first section of the essay will examine the thesis in further detail and the second will assess how Parfit’s claims fare in the face of criticism.
...es, if one will sit back and evaluate they will find the true meaning of self-identity, beyond ones name, hobbies, or careers. The narrator took his journey of self-awareness and found his identity. In the novel Fight Club, the narrator discovers the truth about himself and his true identity. The path of self-discovery leads our narrator on a dangerous path. Where will your path lead you?
Personal identity in first world countries is often taken for granted. We have the ability to act however we please or be whatever we want without any real limitations. In George Orwell's, “1984”, identity is not taken for granted because personal identity does not exist. Orwell illustrates a vision of life where a totalitarian government eradicates individual identity. Winston Smith, the narrator of the novel, lives in a dystopian society where he and every other citizen struggle to maintain their own personal identity. The author suggests that individuals may struggle to maintain personal identity in a totalitarian government due to the lack of diversity this is because identity can only exist if the environment allows it to. Although if
This new identity issue not only arises because the narrator realizes that he is African American but also because he is bi-racial and can and had passed as being white until this discovery. From this point on the narrator continues his life learning and experiencing the differences between...
Authors are frequently categorized in some ways by the particular era they are writing in. This often gives a sense of what message the speaker is trying to relay, and the context in which the author is writing. Addressing the issue of self identity through this context allows a
Many philosophers and psychologist from Jean Piaget to William James have theorized what makes a person who they are, their identity. Jean Piaget believed that the identity is formed in the sensorimotor stage and the preoperational stage. This means that a child is forming his identity as late to the age of seven (Schellenberg, 29) However, identity is strongly impacted by society such as school, church, government,and other institutions. Through our interactions with different situations our personality develops (Schellenberg 34). "In most situations there is a more diversified opportunity for the development of social identities, reflecting what the individual wants to put forth to define the self as well as what others want to accept,"(Schellenberg 35). Therefore, humans, much like animals, adapt to different situations based on who they are with. Individuals are always changi...