Wakefield

Identity is what makes people who they are. A spirit, individuality, and reminiscence are something that belongs to every individual. Someone might become different; however, profoundly we continue to be the same. “Wakefield” expounds the concept of the story in the shape of an ordinary imaginary- to leave his wife and his home and to realize the consequence that his nonappearance has in the loveliest person’s that he left without any knowledge about him.

Wakefield is a character that decides to take a decision that changes his life completely. He decides to go far away from the society; and the most importantly from his family and his beloved wife. Without the knowledge of his wife of his disappearance he refuses to go back home even after he finds out that his wife is sick and might die. Wakefield goes back to his family just after 20 years of disappearance even that he lived nearby just to see his wife from the distance. He goes back like he was living in that house every day and continues his old manner of life. Wakefield is a character who is in a quest to find his identity and who is self-determining. Firstly, it’s his profound desire to disappear from the life he was living, to be imperceptible, and to discover the world that surrounds him without the presence of others. He decided to be isolated from the world living his life independently. Secondly, Wakefield loses his identity, liquefying in the roads of the city. He is a person that abandons his principal duties and considers that he is maybe exchangeable. As the narrator marks, “stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever” (Hawthorne 6). Thirdly and finally, Wakefield takes a decision to go ba...

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...a conclusion, the expression “Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever” shows that he threatened his role in a society as a friend, and as a husband while trying to create a new world for himself. He feels lonely and isolated. The narrator leaves us with the enigma to try to understand the story essentially, and in an intense meaning. It could be that the narrator is trying to demonstrate modernity by trying to describe the extraordinary behaviors of humankind and Wakefield’s desire to live the world individually. This is a story that tells us that even if we don’t like the way we live or the way how people identify us, inside we will always be the same person.