Indigenous Identity Essay

What is Identity? Is it what you think of yourself? Is it how others see you? Or maybe it is the way you present yourself. Stories like “Ain’t I a Woman?” by Sojourner Truth , “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, and “Indigenous Identity: What is it, and Who Really has it?” by Hilary N. Weaver give us a few examples of identity based on each one of the authors viewpoints. Both “Ain’t I a Woman?” and “The Story of an Hour”, focus on how women were viewed and placed in society before and during the suffrage movement. “The Lottery” opens our eyes to the identity issue of blindly following tradition. The author of the story “Indigenous Identity: What is it, and Who Really has it?” tells us that identity is based on; race, gender, social status, and the knowledge of one’s heritage.

First, the identity issue of feminism is talked about in “Ain’t I a Woman” and “The Story of an Hour”. They both deal with how women were treated during the early 20th century and before. Women were expected to cook, clean the house, bear and raise children, and keep the house going while the husband was at work. We see Chopin in her story, “The Story of an Hour”, giving the main character, Mrs. Mallard, the “taste of freedom”, meaning that her marriage is a “prison” of sorts and that it is holding her back in life. This happens when she is told that her husband has been killed in a wreck. Her first reaction is one that any wife that has a loving husband would have, one of sorrow. But after a few moments when she has locked herself in a room and has been staring out of a window, she realizes that she is “free”. Free from being under the thumb of her husband and free from the status quo.

In 1851 Sojourner Truth gave a s...

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...s and by those inside their own communities. One of the things she points out is that the way we define ourselves is not how the world always sees us. We are all different, but we choose to identify ourselves by the people surrounding us, the culture that we are exposed to, our actions, and the achievements that we obtain.

All but two of the stories deal with different identity issues. Both “The Story of an Hour” and “Ain’t I a Woman?” dealt with how women were treated and the lack of a right to vote that they during and pre-suffrage movement. “The Lottery” dealt with how the people of a small town identified with traditions. “Indigenous Identity: What is it, and Who Really has it?” dealt with how the identities of a certain race of people were view from within outside their community. The three stories along with the speech all have one issue in common, identity.