How can we explore some of the ways American writers have raised and developed questions of identity (racial, ethnic, gender, sexual etc. ) in literature?
The concept of identity, to many American writers, is the central nervous system of American fiction. It can take many forms, whether it be the psychological identity challenged by Kesey’s exploration of sanity in ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’, or Cather’s humanization and characterisation of the American prairie as a living presence. The explanation as to why thematic questions of identity feature so prominently in these, and many other American works of fiction lies in the history and identity of the American people themselves. With such a relatively recent history, literature from the United States has relied upon its own cultural, social and political past to find it’s own voice. Much unlike that of literature from Europe, American fiction has therefore had to define and challenge itself creating many unique narratives, at the heart of which lie notions of a diverse identity.
American writers, when raising questions of identity, often use both plot and characters to explore and develop upon binary concepts. In Chopin’s ‘awakening’ of Edna Pontellier’s sexual and social identity, we as readers experience the dichotomy of conformation and dissidence to the social norm. Indeed ‘Edna is torn by the tension between what Chopin calls the ‘outward existence which conforms’ and the ‘inward life which questions’. Chopin, through Edna’s rebellious behaviour and outlook reveals the scandalous struggle in the late 19th century between mind and body, freedom and suppression, and sexuality and abstention.
American writers, when raising questions of identity, often use both plot and characters to explore and develop upon binary concepts. In Chopin’s ‘awakening’ of Edna Pontellier’s sexual and social identity, we as readers experience the dichotomy of conformation and dissidence to the social norm. Indeed ‘Edna is torn by the tension between what Chopin calls the ‘outward existence which conforms’ and the ‘inward life which questions’. Chopin, through Edna’s rebellious behaviour and outlook reveals the scandalous struggle in the late 19th century between mind and body, freedom and suppression, and sexuality and abstention.
Indeed, Edna Pontellier is stifled by the repressive 19th century culture and challenges the identity forced upon her of wife and mother even telling Madame Ratignolle that ‘she would never sacrifice herself for her children, or for any one’. This statement remains even slightly scandalous by today’s standards. It is Edna’s disregard for the opinions of others which fuels her actions. Indeed ‘We cannot be certain whether her act stems from an impulse of the self to find affirmation beyond society’s reach, even at the expense of death, or more simply from some assent to dismissal from a world she cannot accept’. It is this ‘impulse of the self’ with which Chopin masterfully explores gender and sexual identity of a woman at the turn of the century. Edna is defiant in her behaviour, even selfish, in order to break free from the restrictive boundaries of her gender.
Furthermore it is impossible to ignore the unique blend of racial and ethnic cultures which exist in America today, many of which have had their origins immortalised in literature. It is these cultures and races which contribute to an identity of multiculturalism present in much of American fiction. This multicultural identity is what often enriches and brings to life the American novel. As well as the depiction of gender and sexual identity, Chopin, as a regionalist writer, explores the unique cultural identity of the French Creole community. The inclusion of the French language within the narrative adds a sense of reality and sophisticated understanding to ‘The Awakening’. As Spiller asserts ‘she knew how to use dialect for flavouring; with her it never became an obstacle’; this is reminiscent of Mark Twain’s use of dialect in ’The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’. Chopin decorates both the omniscient narrative and the stylised speech of her characters with French dialogue; we are informed of how Edna ‘made no ineffectual efforts to conduct her household en bonne ménagèr’. Likewise we read Robert exclaim ‘with a sudden, boyish laugh, "Voilà que Madame Ratignolle est jalouse!". This realism in the portrayal of local customs, culture and speech embellishes Chopin’s characterisation and portrayal of Creole identity making it not only more believable to the reader, but simultaneously more interesting as a novel.
Indeed, truth as a necessity for a believable and thus more interesting depiction of life also applies in the pioneer fictions of Willa Cather. In these novels however, rather than truthful characterisation, it is more her sentimental depiction and humanization of the land, which evokes a powerful and even romantic sense of identity. Drawing upon ‘shapes and scenes that have teased the mind for years’ Cather believes that to construct sympathy from solely imagination ‘can at best present only a brilliant sham’. In many instances, questions of identity are intrinsically linked with the memory of the author. The best ideas and images are indeed those formed from imprints of sentimental memory long passed, rather than recent experiences and impressions. It is these persistant memories, which have stood the test of time and linger fondly in the mind of the author, from which Cather drew her inspiration for the relatively plotless pioneer novels.
Moreover Cather reveals an interplay between the human soul and it’s environment enriching the vast western prairie with its own character. In ‘My Antonia’ Cather describes the plough ‘magnified across the distance by the horizontal light’ of the sunset, standing ‘black against the molten red. There it was, heroic in size, a picture writing on the sun’. This poignant imagery combines the idea of the beauty of nature and man-made factors which co-exist with it. Both the plough and the light of the sun are ‘heroic’ and their importance is reinforced by the powerful contrast of black against red. Indeed, in O pioneers! we read that the ‘great fact’ of prairie life, ‘was the land itself’. The multicultural identity which lies at the heart of the pioneer fictions is epitomised by imprints left upon the land by the masses of different cultural and ethnic identities. The pioneer fictions are stories of human toil, heart and soul which ‘go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before’. In this way Cather celebrates the historical origin of such a large part of American culture and identity today.
 |
| Oregon, August 1939. “Unemployed lumber worker goes with his wife to the bean harvest. Note Social Security number tattooed on arm.” |
Often, however, when exploring the origins of such multicultural identities, writers portray the more negative contrasts using the binary of the ‘civilized’ oppressor and the oppressed other. In this way, writers of American fiction have explored a loss of identity with the depiction of the diminished ethnic voice; whether it is that of the disappearing Native Indian narrator, chief Bromden, in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’, or the revealing insights of the repressed African American offered in the slave narratives. In these works we witness a juxtaposition to the American ideal of ‘the land of the free’. An austere contrast is indeed drawn when we consider Emma Lazarus’s poem, engraved on the pedestal of the statue of liberty greeting immigrants at new York city harbour in 1903. ‘Give me your tired your poor/ your huddled masses yearning to breathe free (...) I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’ . This reassuringly poignant verse welcomes immigrants and other nationalities yet the bleak incongruous truth is, as literature and history have shown, ‘America has often not welcomed but instead erased differences of region, race, colour, creed, class or gender’
Undeniably, we need look no further than Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs’ exposés which reveal the tragedy of inhumane repression of generations of African Americans ignorant of their roots. As autobiographies, these narrative writers truly expose the pain and harsh truth of parts of America’s history. As Douglass writes we ‘were ranked with horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being’. This stark description highlights the behaviour which reduced the individual identity of an African American, regardless of gender or age, into that of an animalistic slave. It is this loss of identity through oppressive forces, which left the white reader of the 19th century and the modern reader truly sympathetic.
Undeniably, we need look no further than Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs’ exposés which reveal the tragedy of inhumane repression of generations of African Americans ignorant of their roots. As autobiographies, these narrative writers truly expose the pain and harsh truth of parts of America’s history. As Douglass writes we ‘were ranked with horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being’. This stark description highlights the behaviour which reduced the individual identity of an African American, regardless of gender or age, into that of an animalistic slave. It is this loss of identity through oppressive forces, which left the white reader of the 19th century and the modern reader truly sympathetic.
Moreover, this loss of identity through oppression is a common theme explored in American fiction. The puritan identity, for example, explored by Hawthorne in ‘The Scarlet Letter’, is one of contrasts. Here Hawthorne presents the struggle between an identity of individualism weighed against the judgements of a social zeitgeist. The puritan identity is of the founding father; the dominant and authoritative white man imposing himself and his religious and moral assertations upon all around him. It is this puritan identity which forces itself upon the fragile yet very much self empowered identity of Hester Prynn. Hawthorne uses Hester’s sin of adultery to explore some of the age old human characteristics of frailty and sorrow. As Spiller writes ‘We watch the slow relentless fires of subsequent remorse and revenge sear them all’. The puritan mechanisms themselves, such as the red letter ‘A’ embroidered upon Hester’s clothing are not inherent in the tragedy of Hester’s loss of identity. They represent only the fashions of an era which may have their equivalent both in the society of Hawthorne’s reader, and that of ours.
Although Hester’s individual loss of a sense of personal identity is a focal point in the novel, Hawthorne reaffirms throughout her final self empowerment and redemption that the scarlet letter is in fact a symbol of adversity overcome and of knowledge gained. Indeed by the end of the novel Hawthorne informs us that ‘the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world’s scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, and yet with reverence, too’.
Similarly, just as significant as Hester Prynn’s triumph over a loss of identity is the search for a true identity explored by Kesey. The concept of a defiant quest for true identity is powerfully depicted in ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ in which Kesey ‘‘explored the redemptive effects of individual rebellion; the edge of creative violence’’. McMurphy challenges authority in this novel through maintaining a psychological and personal identity. Unlike the other patients at the Oregon state mental hospital, McMurphy refuses to submit to the controlling nurse Ratched. This exploration of identity is all the more powerfully resonant and poignant when understood alongside the literary culture in which Kesey was writing. In 1960s America, American society, indeed culture itself was perceived as the dead weight of custom, the repressive force of abstraction from which man must escape’ in which there surfaced ‘radical distrust of psycho therapy’. In this way Kesey uses ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ to explore the ways in which man’s personal sense of identity can be repressed, through the stifling of individualism. It is a disturbing novel in which the reader is exposed to the identity of the mind. Nurse Ratched induces fear, not through obvious physical brutality or violence, but on the contrary, through the subtleties of her unsettling psychological manipulation of the very vulnerable male identities on her ward. As chief Bromden explains ‘As soon as you let down your guard, as soon as you lose once, she's won for good’. The imagery employed by Kesey of winning and losing reiterates the notion of a constant battle or struggle for these men searching for their sanity, or in other words their sense of identity.
Similarly, just as significant as Hester Prynn’s triumph over a loss of identity is the search for a true identity explored by Kesey. The concept of a defiant quest for true identity is powerfully depicted in ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ in which Kesey ‘‘explored the redemptive effects of individual rebellion; the edge of creative violence’’. McMurphy challenges authority in this novel through maintaining a psychological and personal identity. Unlike the other patients at the Oregon state mental hospital, McMurphy refuses to submit to the controlling nurse Ratched. This exploration of identity is all the more powerfully resonant and poignant when understood alongside the literary culture in which Kesey was writing. In 1960s America, American society, indeed culture itself was perceived as the dead weight of custom, the repressive force of abstraction from which man must escape’ in which there surfaced ‘radical distrust of psycho therapy’. In this way Kesey uses ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ to explore the ways in which man’s personal sense of identity can be repressed, through the stifling of individualism. It is a disturbing novel in which the reader is exposed to the identity of the mind. Nurse Ratched induces fear, not through obvious physical brutality or violence, but on the contrary, through the subtleties of her unsettling psychological manipulation of the very vulnerable male identities on her ward. As chief Bromden explains ‘As soon as you let down your guard, as soon as you lose once, she's won for good’. The imagery employed by Kesey of winning and losing reiterates the notion of a constant battle or struggle for these men searching for their sanity, or in other words their sense of identity.
In conclusion, the concept of identity in American literature is intrinsically linked with history. American society and culture are rooted in the events of the past and these are often dramatised in very poignant ways. American writers use stark binary concepts, such as oppression and the oppressed, escapism and control and sanity and insanity to illustrates the complexities of the identity of the mind. Whether it is Edna Pontellier’s empowered female identity, or the beauty of the almost personified land, American writers use truth and sophisticated understanding of the people whom they describe to create the multi-diverse depiction of the American identity.
--------------------------
The Literary guide to the United States
Stewart Benedict, Blandford 1981
The Literary guide to the United States
Stewart Benedict, Blandford 1981
A Cultural History of the American Novel, 1890-1940: Henry James to William Faulkner
David Minter, Cambridge University Press, 1996
David Minter, Cambridge University Press, 1996
The Arts, Artifacts, and Artifices of Identity
Elliott Oring
The Journal of American Folklore
Vol. 107, No. 424 (Spring, 1994), pp. 211-233
Vol. 107, No. 424 (Spring, 1994), pp. 211-233
Published by: American Folklore Society
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/541199
Literary history of the United States: Bibliography supplement, Volume 4
Robert Ernest Spiller, Willard Thorp, Henry Seidel Canby, Macmillan, 1960
American prose and poetry in the 20th century
Caroline Zilboorg, Cambridge University Press, 2000
