A person’s family, race, culture, and life style within a society or a community are just a few factors that give him or her an identity. Coming to terms with understanding one’s identity is not simple because of the many factors defining it and might take one’s whole life to finally understand who he or she is. “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid and “My Two-Lives” by Jhumpa Lahiri are both writing pieces that have characters who share these conflicting factors of identification yet still have very different views on which of these factors are more valuable to allow them to be accepted in their societies or communities.
The race of a person for instance might represent a certain uniqueness and pride yet at times, it can provoke a sense of shame and anger especially when a person is mixed in with more than one race or nationality. This kind of behavior is seen in Jhumpa Lahiri’s “My Two-Lives.” This piece of writing represents two completely opposite cultures where the narrator finds herself conflicted between the two. There are other identity factors such as her family, society and relationships that are at time intertwined which make it much more difficult for her to identify herself. Jhumpa has struggled for thirty-seven years to feel that sense of belonging in America. “Like many immigrant offspring I felt intense pressure to be two things: loyal to the old world and fluent in the new, approved of on either side of the hyphen” (Lahiri 647). In her early life, she was torn to be two different personalities because she couldn’t fully be herself either in school with her friends or at home with her parents. Her parents never thought of themselves as Americans. Even though they lived in the U.S., they still followed their Indian culture a...
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... of which factor is more valuable to focus on so that their societies may accept them. The girl is fighting to fit in society as a respectable woman with the help of her mother as opposed to Jhumpa who is more focused on being accepted into her society with two different cultures that she’s trying so hard to blend in with each other. The identity factors of each character such as family, race, and culture were heavily influenced by their society or community and therefore in the end given an identity.
Works Cited
Kincaid, Jamaica. "Girl." Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. By John Schilb and John Clifford. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. 55-56. Print.
Lahiri, Jhumpa. "My Two Lives." Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. By John Schilb and John Clifford. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. 646-48. Print.
Gilman, Charlotte. The Yellow Wallpaper. Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. By John Schilb and John Clifford. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. 954-967. Print.
Chopin, Kate. ?The Story of an Hour.? Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. 2nd ed. Ed. John Schlib and John Clifford. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin?s, 2003. 862-63.
Updlike, John. "A&P." Literature. An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. 12th Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 12th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education (US), 2012. 17-21. Print
Would you want society or your family to discredit your identity because their lacking capacity for thought? Identity is a known label attached to a human until the end of their existence. Identity is defined by your gender; both male and female indentities are conterversial in regards to societys judgement, further depicting how the gender roles should be precieved. In the novels, A complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Identity will be the topic further discussed, focused on the two main characters in the . I will be alternating quotes between the main protagonists, Amir from Kabul Afganistan, and Nomi Nickel Mennonite Manitoba. i will explain how the society around these two characters affect the
Levine, Philip. ”What Work Is.” Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. Ed. John Schilb and John Clifford. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. Print.
Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. Ed. John Schilb and John Clifford. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin's, 2000. 127-137.
Lahiri, a second-generation immigrant, endures the difficulty of living in the middle of her hyphenated label “Indian-American”, whereas she will never fully feel Indian nor fully American, her identity is the combination of her attributes, everything in between.
Establishing an identity has been called one of the most important milestones of adolescent development (Ruffin, 2009). Additionally, a central part of identity development includes ethnic identity (ACT for Youth, 2002). While some teens search for cultural identity within a smaller community, others are trying to find their place in the majority culture. (Bucher and Hinton, 2010)The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian chronicles Junior’s journey to discovery of self. As with many developing teens, he finds himself spanning multiple identities and trying to figure out where he belongs. “Traveling between Reardan and Wellpinit, between the little white town and the reservation, I always felt like a stranger. I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other” (p.118). On the reservation, he was shunned for leaving to go to a white school. At Reardon, the only other Indian was the school mascot, leaving Junior to question his decision to attend school he felt he didn’t deserve. Teens grappling with bicultural identities can relate to Junior’s questions of belonging. Not only is Junior dealing with the struggle between white vs. Indian identities, but with smaller peer group identities as well. In Wellpinit, Junior is th...
In the novel excerpt “Two kinds,” Amy Tan uses the central conflict to develop the theme through the clash of cultural identities. Tan shows the reader how culture is dynamic in each individual person. Culture can be mixed and change over time.
Identity is 'how you view yourself and your life.'; (p. 12 Knots in a String.) Your identity helps you determine where you think you fit in, in your life. It is 'a rich complexity of images, ideas and associations.';(p. 12 Knots in a String.) It is given that as we go through our lives and encounter different experiences our identity of yourselves and where we belong may change. As this happens we may gain or relinquish new values and from this identity and image our influenced. 'A bad self-image and low self-esteem may form part of identity?but often the cause is not a loss of identity itself so much as a loss of belonging.'; Social psychologists suggest that identity is closely related to our culture. Native people today have been faced with this challenge against their identity as they are increasingly faced with a non-native society. I will prove that the play The Rez Sisters showed this loss of identity and loss of belonging. When a native person leaves the reservation to go and start a new life in a city they are forced to adapt to a lifestyle they are not accustomed to. They do not feel as though they fit in or belong to any particular culture. They are faced with extreme racism and stereotypes from other people in the nonreservational society.
Hansberry, Lorraine. ?A Raisin in the Sun.? Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. Eds. John Schilb and John Clifford. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin?s 2008.
In “My Two Lives” Jhumpa Lahiri talks about her hardship growing up in America coming from two different cultures. At home she spoke Bengali with her parents, ate with her hands. According to Jhumpa’s parents she was not American and would never be. This led her to become ashamed of her background. She felt like she did not have to hide her culture anymore. When Jhumpa got married in Calcutta she invited her American friends that never visited India. Jhumpa thought her friends would judge from being part of the Indian culture and isolate her.However her friends were intrigued by her culture and fascinated. She felt like her culture should not be hidden from her friends anymore, and that coming from an Indian-American culture is unique. Jhumpa believes that her upbringing is the reason why she is still involved with her Bengali culture. Jhumpa says“While I am American by virtue of the fact that I was raised in this country, I am Indian thanks to the efforts of two individuals.” Jhumpa means that she is Indian, because she lived most of her life and was raised here. In the story Lahiri explains that her parents shaped her into the person she is. Growing up coming from two different cultures can be difficult, but it can also be beneficial.
Bailey, Carol. "Performance and the Gendered Body in Jamaica Kincaid's "girl" and Oonya Kempadoo's Buxton Spice." Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism. 10.2 (2011): 106-123. Print.
Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. Ed. John Schilb and John Clifford. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin's, 2005.
Identity is a state of mind in which someone recognizes/identifies their character traits that leads to finding out who they are and what they do and not that of someone else. In other words it's basically who you are and what you define yourself as being. The theme of identity is often expressed in books/novels or basically any other piece of literature so that the reader can intrigue themselves and relate to the characters and their emotions. It's useful in helping readers understand that a person's state of mind is full of arduous thoughts about who they are and what they want to be. People can try to modify their identity as much as they want but that can never change. The theme of identity is a very strenuous topic to understand but yet very interesting if understood. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez and Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki are two remarkable books that depict the identity theme. They both have to deal with people that have an identity that they've tried to alter in order to become more at ease in the society they belong to. The families in these books are from a certain country from which they're forced to immigrate into the United States due to certain circumstances. This causes young people in the family trauma and they must try to sometimes change in order to maintain a comfortable life. Both authors: Alvarez and Houston have written their novels Is such an exemplifying matter that identity can be clearly depicted within characters as a way in adjusting to their new lives.