The Quest for Identity in American Literature

The Quest for Identity in American Literature

The quest for identity depends a lot on the emotional, cultural and social stability of an individual. Stability is the ultimate stage of this quest, this is why I believe there is a strong interdependence between the two. One cannot speak of identity without referring to emotional, social and cultural stability. Apart from these three dimensions of the human being, another important aspect of the American identity is the feminine identity.

In order to deal with these four aspects, I will refer to several American short stories, as it follows:

1. The quest for emotional stability: A White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett

The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway

Death of a Traveling Salesman by Eudora Welty

2. The quest for social stability: Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville

Barn Burning by William Faulkner

That Evening Sun by William Faulkner

3. The quest for cultural stability: The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky by Stephen Crane

Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving

Ernest Hemingway in Milan, 1918

American Author Ernest Hemingway aboard his Yacht ...

The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952 film)

4. The quest for feminine identity: Old Mortality by Katherine Anne Porter

1. The quest for emotional stability:

"« A White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett,

"« The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway

"« Death of a Traveling Salesman by Eudora Welty

A White Heron, by Sarah Orne Jewett is a story of a girl who attained emotional stability by remaining true to her own values and by refusing to yield to the masculine dominance in a patriarchal world. It is through silence that she remains 'outside history' and thus maintains her place in nature, as opposed to the hunter whose world is 'history', governed by science, language and knowledge.

As she accompanies the hunter through the woods in search of the white heron she feels the need to be...