Identity in Contemporary Literature

     The concept of identity is a reoccurring theme throughout the contemporary pieces that we have read.  The question of what it means to exist as an individual and understanding who oneself is on a deeper internal level plagues the minds of the characters, specifically in the three most recent books that we have completed.  In both Orhan Pamuk’s novel, The White Castle, and his autobiographical work, Istanbul: Memories and the City, as well as in Derek Walcott’s Omeros, the reader can recognize these questions repeating.  As the characters develop through the works, there are questions of individuality that are both resolved and brought about as they move through the process of self-discovery.

            In The White Castle, Pamuk causes his main characters to ponder their own individuality by creating circumstances that bring the two of them together.  Due to their uncanny physical similarities, the two characters eventually trade places and go about living the lives of one another.  In their early moments of realizing their unusual circumstance, the narrator of the piece as well as his master Hoja are standing together in front of a mirror admiring this coincidence.  The narrator relays that “the two of us were one person!  This now seemed to be an obvious truth… I would not tear my eyes away; then he was gleeful as a child who teases a friend by mimicking his words and movements.  He shouted that we should die together!  What nonsense, I thought.  But I was also afraid.  It was the most terrifying of all the nights I spent with him” (82-83).  In this scene, it is apparent that the narrator is struggling to distinguish himself as an individual.  As Hoja continues to mimic his gestures flawlessly, the narrator becomes increasingly afraid and insecure.  He questions how it can be that he is no longer unique and what can be done to define himself as his own person.

            Upon reading through Pamuk’s autobiography Istanbul: Memories and the City, we can see that there are numerous ways in which The White Castle was riddled with pieces of his real life.  As early as the first line of Pamuk’s account of his time and connection to Istanbul, he states that “From a very young age, I suspected there was more to my world than I could see: Somewhere in the streets of Istanbul, in a house resembling ours, there lived another Orhan so much like me that he could pass for my twin, even my double” (3).  From the very beginning, Pamuk has set the precedence that he has questioned his own individuality sense he was just a young boy.  And, as we have discussed in his fictional piece, Pamuk has created an actual account of this stirring within him that caused him to wonder about his other self since childhood.  Pamuk later goes to describe the relationship that he also had in this sense of a replicate him.  He says that “Whenever I was unhappy, I imagined going to the other house, the other life, the place where the other Orhan lived, and in spite of everything I’d half convince myself that I was he and took pleasure in imagining how happy he was, such pleasure that, for a time, I felt no need to go to seek the other house in that other imagined part of the city” (5).  In this case, Pamuk’s individuality was a cumbersome part of his existence.  By connecting to this other person, he had the escape that he desired, away from his actual circumstance that he seemed to dread.

 

            Walcott’s Omeros, while it takes a different approach to the question of identity in that there is no sense of sharing one’s identity with someone else, does question what identity truly is and how we can often times lose who we really are.  In the story, Achille returns back to Africa in a state of trance and is reunited with his father, Afolabe.  In the process of their conversations, Afolabe admits that he has forgotten the name that he bestowed on his son and he asks what his new name now means.  To this, Achille replies “Well, I too have forgotten.  Everything was forgotten.  You also.  I do not know.  The deaf sea has changed around every name that you gave us; trees, men, we yearn for a sound that is missing” (137).  Upon hearing that his son was not even aware of the meaning of his own name, Afolabe becomes seemingly annoyed and responds rather harshly saying “but you, if you’re content with not knowing what our names mean, then I am not Afolabe, your father, and you look through my body as light looks through a leaf.  I am not here or a shadow.  And you, nameless son, are only the ghost of a name” (138-139).  Through this interaction, we can gain insight into what Walcott thinks is important to understanding one’s identity.  It is not necessarily that the exact meaning of one’s name is hugely significant, but it is crucial to one’s understanding of who they are as a unique individual.  This is why Afolabe becomes so disgruntled.  If Achille is willing to live his life without knowing the meaning of his own name, then he must be willing to go through life not knowing who he truly is.  And this is something that his caring father cannot bear to witness. 

    

            The question of identity is by no means a cut and dry issue.  There are multiple factors that need to be considered before even attempting to contemplate who someone actually is and what their individuality really means to them.  I think that these three books discussed above do well to portray just how complex an issue this can be for us as people.  Personally, I think that through various approaches, Walcott and Pamuk were both successful in shining light onto this intricate topic and have really caused me to consider what it means to be ‘me’ too.