Identity In The Book: The Idiot By Elif Batuman

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Summer Assignment 2017
This year’s summer assignment topic was about identity. Identity is knowing for a fact who you are as a person and what your role is in the world. Most people don't figure out who they are and what their purpose is right away but they find it through experience and the events they go through. Influences around a person may also change someone as a person and may affect how they identify themselves in the world. Negative peer pressure from bad friends could lead someone from becoming a future leader and turn them into a local drug dealer or gangbanger. Identity can constantly change depending on how the person sees life and what they endure in their life.

The book that I give chosen to read is The Idiot by Elif Batuman. This book is centered around an 18-year-old woman named Selin, who is a freshman and is new to college, goes to Harvard where email and computers are becoming a common tool for communication. At first she has yet to get used to her new surroundings and make friends that she can look to for …show more content…

It is Selin’s first love but it is extremely bewildering to her bc it IS her first love and she doesn't exactly know what to do or how to feel. Earlier on in the story, Selin wins a writing contest and the edition of the literary magazine she wrote for, called her and said she that had a chance to publish her work and she can receive a 50 dollar gift card for a bookstore and she was glad that she had won and received the prize. But right after the phone call, Selin had a feeling of dreadfulness in her stomach bc she didn't want anyone to think that she thought her story was good. She doesn't really identify herself as a good writer but she writes bc it is her only way to communicate. This is one of a few times when she is forced to face the inevitable conclusion that she is stuck becoming a

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