Mircea Alexandra Diana French-English

The 3rd year

Issues of Identity in 19th century American Literature

The issue of identity was first approached and applied in the American literature in the 19th century. It consists in constructing and coming to grips with the authors’ identity. They were trying to describe and to analyze the hidden problems, sufferings and realm of the soul and, of course, of the unconscious. The popular question which started to be used by that time was “Who am I?”, but it gradually passed to the collective “Who we are?” We should know that, since the American tradition didn’t have any obvious roots, they borrowed very much from the immigrants and, in time, the wilderness of the ancient world has gone.

Since the American writers didn’t have any settled tradition, they started to explore within the human soul and mind, which came to invent new style.

While the English writers explore the raising of a poor man on the economic and social scale, the American ones reveal the absence of the tradition. This is the case of writers like Richard Wright, or Sarah O. Jewett who deeply analyzed the characters’ reaction in a critical period of their life. For instance, in “The Man Who Was Almost a Man”, Wright presents the coming to age of a young black boy. As we all know, Wright is a black writer, so we could say that this coming of age of this particular black boy might signify the author’s way to his maturity, even though if not in the same context or by the same means. His main character, Dave, is an angry teenager, who wants to become a man. He thinks that a gun would make him powerful and he makes all sorts of strategies to accomplish his dream: to buy a gun so that he could get the others’ respect. Some would say that he finally manages to become a man, but I think he is still a child. He is a man only by age, but at the end of the story, he doesn’t learn anything from his humiliation and he is still bounded with that gun.

This means that Wright used to reveal this teenager’s issue of identity is the interior monologue and the indirect characterization by facts, behavior. For instance, Dave’s anger and frustration might suggest the black people’s frustration accumulated during the slavery. Even if by the time the story was written the slavery was finished, the black people would act and react just as if they would be slaves, but only of habit, I suppose, or by the fear that they will become again slaves. So, Dave’s anger and suffering, even if the readers don’t know the actual reason, is transmitted by Dave’s monologue: “Shucks, Ah ain scareda them even ef they are biggern me! Aw, Ah know whut Ahma do. Ahm going by ol Joe’s sto n git that Sears Roebuck catlog n look at them guns. Mebbe Ma will lemme buy one when she gits mah pay from ol man Hawkins. Ahma beg her t gimme some money. Ahm ol enough to hava gun. Ahm seventeen. Almost a man.”

Wright is also placing the character in a difficult position in order to see how the boy reacts. While he is trying to shoot with the gun, he is hurting Mrs. Hawkins’ mule and the poor animal dies. When the others neighbors find that Dave is to blame for his mistake, they aren’t angry, instead they are mocking him and humiliating him, so the poor boy becomes more frustrated and he gains more anger from that unpleasant experience. So, the issue of identity here is that he has to pass through this kind of situation, in order to achieve maturity and to become a man.

Unlike Dave, Sylvia from Jewett’s “A White Heron” is also a young girl, but not a teenager, who has an issue of identity too, but in an unseen way. She was born in a city, but she was raised at the countryside. She feels much peaceful within the nature. Even her name is significant, Sylvia, from “silva” which means forest. So, while she is in a deep connection with the nature, she feels peaceful, unlike Dave who is mad all the time, but she has to experience too a sort of initiation in order not to become a woman, but to achieve the perfect knowledge of the nature, to be an integral part of it. While the stranger represents a temptation, she is supposed to resist it if she really wants to be in perfect harmony with the nature. It’s like it testes her with a sort of life exam. In comparison with Dave, Sylvia is peaceful, is more patient, unlike Dave who wants to become a man instantly. She has patience and with patience one can pass every threshold which is in his/her way to achieve something. So, Sylvia manages to pass the life’s exam and achieves this higher level of knowledge. We can say about her that she has learned something from the experience with the stranger. The issue of identity in this case is the struggle between her two inner natures: the city world and the world of nature. When the stranger asks her to reveal the secret of the heron’s nest, the girl is not sure if she has to tell him this or not. She struggles between these two worlds before she decides to pass to the nature’s side.

In my opinion, it is interesting how these authors managed to transpose the issue of identity in literature, making it clear through characters which are at a turning point in life. This invention compensates even more the lack of tradition from the American literature, making us to believe that actually they have an issue of identity: the uncertainty.

Bibliography:

1. Ana-Blanca, Ciocoi-Pop, “Notes on 19th century American literature”, LBUS PRESS, Sibiu, 2007