Identity
Erik Erikson once said “In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity.” The texts, “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant, “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan , and “Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie all demonstrate how one’s identity is created. Identity is created through one’s culture, family, society, and the different experiences all of those factors create.
The first way one’s identity is created, is through the society one lives in. A society’s ideals and the status one has in that society greatly impacts what one strives for or puts value in. The society in which “The Necklace” takes place, values the wealth and status of the aristocrats at that time. Aristocrats were the ideal of that society. Maupassant’s character Matilda says…show more content… A person’s family determines a significant amount of what one is exposed to and the opportunities one has. In “Superman and Me” Sherman Alexie says “My father loved books and since I loved my father with an aching devotion, I decided to love books as well”(1). Sherman Alexie lived on a reservation where doing well in school and reading were not as valued. However, because of his father’s love of reading, Sherman eventually became a writer. Sherman also says “If he’d been anything but an Indian boy living on the reservation he might have been called a prodigy”(2). Sherman was not given as many opportunities to expand his learning because of the culture he was from. Because of his experience as a child living on a reservation, Sherman has a passion for trying to teach and give children on reservations the opportunities he did not get. Amy Tan states in Fish Cheeks “You want to be the same as American girls. But inside you must always be Chinese” (1). One’s culture is always a part of them. It is something one cannot change and shapes who they are through the experiences one has because of their
