I will focus on some of these constituents of identity (linguistic, historical, psychoanalytic, and so on) to explain first and foremost why identity is perceived as flawed—fallen—and why this perception delivers some form of violence to individuals who pursue a reversal of this fall. The pursuit of this reversal is a dangerous task in that, among other detrimental consequences, it estranges individuals from those with whom they come into contact. This estrangement (call it lack or loss of communication) in turn creates tension and conflicts within and between different societies. The retrieval of a lost identity translates into the fight for a territory: whether it is a physical territory (as in the case of war for land), or an abstract territory (such as a concept, an ideal, an ideology). In the case of the US, the territory to be defended is either physical (for instance, “the South”), or abstract (for instance, “freedom”). The notion of territory is strictly connected to the notion of identity, because both bind the individual to language. Chapter One explains the processes by which identity and the fall from identity are foundational to subjects of language in conflict with one another. Chapters Two, Three, and Four are the chapters where I demonstrate, through literary texts, why different understandings of identity depend upon what I narrowed down (though by no means exhausting the possibilities) to three different understandings of the fall. Chapters Six and Seven offer first a theoretical resolution for the fall from identity, then a literary analysis of two other novels, to demonstrate how identity can be healed. I end with a very brief conclusion in Chapter Eight.
1 Identity is perceived as social when individuals identify with a role in the social fabric, and strive to achieve perfection within it. This identity is seen as flawed because of unavoidable transgressions against mythical or social systems, and such transgressions generally convene under the umbrella of the fall from innocence. Billy Budd, Herman Melville’s character, is the embodiment of the failure to represent innocence, especially considering that, in a way, Billy Budd represents America.
2 Identity is perceived as self-authentic when individuals identify with wholeness—a form of coherent, pure self-unity—that they believe only they themselves can define, in opposition to mythical and social systems. This identity is seen as flawed because of a loss/lack of self-identity, and is defined as the fall from authenticity. Sutpen in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! embodies a solipsistic quest for identity, and also the failure of American individualism.
3 Identity is perceived as postmodern when meaning is believed to be constructed, rather than essential. Identity, therefore, is indefinable, or does not exist. However, there still is an identity in non-identity, because the world (and individuals in it) strives toward retrieving the lost meaning. Identity (or non-identity) is still defined, in this case as a fall from meaning. Oedipa, in Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, represents America’s failed quest for meaning within the interchangeable signs that refuse to signify.
These definitions of the fall can account for numerous ways in which the encounter with others, seen as the Other as understood by Lacan, is marked by conflict and even destruction. Such conflicts arise because the wholeness lost in the fall, which is seen as in need of retrieval, is defined as such at the expense of the Other, since the Other stands in the way of retrieving the lost wholeness. I will first ground the discussion in 21st Century events, especially the conflicts arising from the terrorist attack on America in September 2001, the armed conflicts following that attack, and the aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the birth of ISIS. Through them, I will illustrate the problematic nature of American identity assumed to be strictly connected to “freedom,” and the problematic nature of identity defined on the reverse side, where “death to America” is seen as one way to purify the world and return it to its wholeness.
I will argue that the quest for identity, doomed to failure because of the identification with a fall, may find resolution in shifting the stakes in language and abandoning the mentality of the fall. Relationality and communication can be salvaged if steps are taken to understand that identity is not fallen and should instead be seen as an effect of what it intends to be, rather than an absolute goal. Identity stands in the way of communication, so that the question becomes: is it possible to relate to other individuals in a way that is no longer a competition between identities?
In Chapter Six, I look at Satya Mohanty’s understanding of contextual identity, then in Chapter Seven I turn for an answer to Rudolfo Anaya’s Tortuga and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. At the time that these novels were written, they were seen as written from the margins of the dominant American culture. Today, after an African American was president for eight years, the margin is not as marginal as it used to be, but there is still a long way to go. These two novels exemplify a point of view that sees identity not as something to retrieve from an idealized past, but as something to be built contextually, as part of the interaction between what I call effects of identity: the effect of being American, the effect of being Native American, African American, and so on.
In order to point to the fallacies of metaphysical thought (which defines the identity that needs to be retrieved), as well as the flaws in the positions of both the proponents and the critics of de-centered thought, this book revisits the deconstructive and poststructuralist/psychoanalytical theories that are to this day the strongest critiques of structured, transcendental thought. As I already suggested, the main connections between identity, territoriality, and language will be made with the help of the formidable Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida. Lacan will assist in showing how identity (defined differently by different ages) always participates in the formation of the self. In the same process, identity defines the opponents of the self and the objects of the self’s desire. I use these Lacanian terms to explain why, within this framework of linguistic identification of self and Other, identity is perceived as flawed, lacking, not whole: in other words, fallen. I also find Lacan’s concepts useful in trying to account for the common insistence on the idea that every human being is in some way fallen. This is a conception of the self that has plagued human history and has given motivation and justification for wars and other conflicts. Derrida’s theories push the explication further, as they provide the framework for my claim that the fall leads to an essentialist perspective on human identity and sets individuals on quests for identity that many times become destructive.
To show the very real impact of such quests for identity fulfillment on the world in which we live, besides literary analysis, Lacanian psychoanalysis and Derridian deconstruction also assist me in entering in a dialogue with contemporary issues such as: a further debate on postmodernism’s loss of credibility following the terrorist attack on September 11; George Bush’s essentialist justifications for attacking Middle Eastern countries; the rise of ISIS as a result of 21st century wars, and of failed revolutions in the Middle East; a discussion of older justifications of power and social systems (such as Jean Jacques Rousseau’s) and how they are still employed in our current society; I will also argue that the debates surrounding the postmodern attack on meaning and transcendental truth can be traced back to mythical/religious and philosophic explications of identity.
Voices in support of the concept of fallen identity are brought under scrutiny, all the way from Plato, Immanuel Kant, and Rousseau to existentialists and modernists such as Fredrick Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger, to postmodern thinkers who still retain the mentality of the fall, such as Baudrillard, Jean-François Lyotard, and Deleuze and Guattari.
In order to explain how identities can be forged outside of fallenness while avoiding the destruction of others, I employ, in the last two chapters, Emmanuel Levinas’ concept of identity as gift to the Other and outside of the self, as well as Satya Mohanty’s and other critics’ concept of contextual identity.
Aside from an attempt to bring