How do we form our identity? Our identity comes from many different things. It is being formed our whole life. It grows and changed. Many different things can change it. Some of those things are our past experiences, other people, and what we want or strive to be. All of these things make up the way we view ourselves. Identity is best shown in the book "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"� by Chief Bromden.
One of the things that form our identity is other people. Other people are always there to try to make us what they want us to be. They ridicule us if we are not "the norm."� We must try to mold our identity to fit in. We might look at ourselves as less than good if we do not add up to what everyone else wants us to be. One of the ways that we identify ourselves is through the way that others judge us.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (film)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)
Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestWe might try to form our identity so that others will see us as a good person. If we are looked down upon by what seems to be everyone, then we will think of ourselves as not as good as those people. Our identity can very easily be changed by the way we see ourselves, which usually comes from they way that other people see us.
Past experiences are another thing that can form our identity. Things that have happened to us in the past affect how we act in the present. Some things can change the way that we see our selves for the rest of our life. Our identity can be changed by near-death experiences and other traumatizing experiences.
In our life we strive to be many different things. We may want to be something so bad that we convince ourselves of something that is not true. In doing this we can make our own identity for ourselves.
Chief Bromden's identity was formed by all of the above things that I talked about. There were people in Chief's life that formed his identity. The way that people treated him at the institution played a big part in Chief's identity. People treated him as if he is just a very small unimportant patient, just like the rest if them. This in turn makes Chief feel very small and unimportant. In the book he tells us that he hides behind his broom. Chief is a very big man, and he most certainly cannot hide behind a broom, but because of the way that he has been treated he actually thinks that he is small enough to do so. Experiences have molded Chief as well. When he was young and living on a reservation, some men came to look at the land. Chief tried to talk to them, but the men just walked on by. They treated Chief like he was nothing, like he was invisible. At the institution Chief makes himself invisible by acting deaf and dumb. He also convinces himself of many things, "It's the truth even if it didn't really happen."�
Paradise: Ascent of the Blessed
THE Identity
Photographic illustration of a near-death-experien...