Identity Formation: A Balance of Control and Environment

INTRODUCTION A person’s identity is made from various characteristics that make the person who he is. It is partly constructed from physical characteristics like skin tones, hair color, and body shape. But it is also formed by more abstract ideas like religion, education, family, gender identity, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and personality traits. All of these things amount to an identity. Scholars and philosophers have debated for many years over how much humans have control over their identities and, if they do have any control, how much should they control? Philosophers like Albert Camus and Thomas Nagel would argue that humans have and should control their identities in order to escape philosophical suicide and to accept the absurdity of everyday life. However, it seems that writers like Chantay Leonard and Alice Walker are more in touch with the relationship between environment and identity. Although humans have free will to make their own choices, they are not in control of the environment and other people around them, and therefore, a great deal of their identity is formed without their consent.

IDENTITY AND CONTROL In his essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus

In her essay entitled, In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens, Walker reflects on her creative roots as a black woman. She recounts the story of her mother who worked day and night to take care of her large family. “There was never a moment for her to sit down, undisturbed, to unravel her own private thoughts; never a time free from interruption-- by work or the noisy inquiries of her many children,” Walker writes (p. 460). In fact, Walker later realizes that her mother’s only creative outlet was in tending to her garden, which was something the excelled in. “Whatever she planted grew as if by magic, and her fame as a grower of flowers spread over three counties,” Walker writes (p.