![]() ![]() ![]() How is identity created and what does it mean to be an American in John Irving’s novels? Torn between their claims to individual identity and their desire to belong to a group, how do the characters manage to reconcile both aspirations? As we shall see, it is through transgression that they manage to assert themselves.Ģ But before coming to this conclusion, it will be necessary to analyze how identity is created in the novels through a complex and continuous process. Nevertheless, as they represent the lives of American characters in post World War II America, they also focus on the question of Americanness. One of the main questions raised by the novels written by John Irving is most certainly that of personal identity. They are characterized by a strong sense of individual freedom, a key element of Americanness, that is a set of dominant values supposedly shared by the American people. ![]() The characters in The Cider House Rules, A Prayer For Owen Meany and A Widow For One Year are defined partly by their charisma, and Owen Meany is in this respect an extreme representation, but also by their relationships to their environment. It corresponds therefore to the set of innate or acquired traits of a person, or gathers the values shared by all members of a group. 1 Identity could be defined as the permanent and fundamental characteristics of a person or a group, something which is the sign of that person or group’s individuality and singularity. ![]()
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