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Behind Lens Beyond Gender:

Introduction:

Through the ages and across cultures, identity has more or less been understood as a product of the
interaction between the self and the society to the extent that sometimes an individual's disembodied
being and universal human potentials, independent of society, are overlooked in order to uphold the
inviolability of social and perceived selves. From confining selves to parochial categories of race,
gender and class to fixating cultural and national identities, literary theories of post-colonialism,
feminism and Marxism have narrowed the understanding of human identity and condition to propagate
the notion of the individual as a subject rather than an active agency.

Such a concept of identity may be informative but not consistent with the metaphysical dimension of
one's existence. Individual identity or who we are is not just a mere psychological, racial, cultural or
social persona but how we come to be all that we are using certain universal tendencies and potentials
that make us human and shape our identity.

Identity in literature and literary criticism has been viewed through the prism of social realities and not
as a metaphysical entity. Literature, according to Marcel Raymond, is an expression of humanity
wherein the perception of mind becomes incarnate in forms. It is a manifestation of the human creative
potential and faculty of imagination. Thus to understand identity in literature in a better way we must
not rely on social categories or identity projections but the creative aspect of the artist's identity. The
artist in the process does not only become more self-conscious of his or her own particular personality,
potential and position in the world but also of his/ her perception of what it means to be human. He also
stumbles upon universal truths through a particular and personal quest. Similarly there is another
element that comprises our core identity along with creativity - our moral standing. As per Charles
Taylor's definition of identity, we know who we are by knowing where we stand and our identity is
defined by moral commitments. Therefore, I will be taking these two universally present potentials that
form the identity of an individual for my research project. I will evaluate the following selected literary
works: Dance Like A Man by Mahesh Dattani, In Spitting Distance – a play by Taher Najib, Narcissus
& Goldmund by Hermann Hesse and Far From the Tree: A Dozen Kinds of Love by Andrew Solomon.
My attempt will be to show how the potentials of creativity and morality can be studied vis-a-vis
identity in a work of art and impart value to it and impart value to it in terms of its effectiveness in
bringing us closer to the persona of the author and the characters. I would also like to point out that
these are revelatory and informative source of an author's identity.
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There is something in everyone that makes them unique which is as much due to cultural influences as
to one's ability to comprehend and incorporate that culture. This unique adaptation to culture in every
individual comes from how we utilize our creative and moral faculties and is what makes one discover
his or her identity. Identity is neither a revelation nor something chanced upon, it is simply there and
simply to be despite of lived experiences and historical/ national or chronological variations.

This proposal is aimed at discovering the creative and moral aspects of identity in literature which
reveal to us our human nature and determine how we live, experience and act in life. Lately, literature
has ignored subjective creativity and morality and recognized individual identity in literary works as
primarily a collective or a group attribute i.e in terms of identity projections. Therefore, by finding and
evaluating the creative and moral impulses of an author and its creation, we can understand identity
more clearly and also what is to be human.

Issues to be investigated:

The primary issue that I would like to investigate in the current research is that of the difference
between identity projections and identity and why they cannot be used interchangeably. I wish to
examine the concept of identity as manifested in the following films:

Names :

These films have been selected as they provide a keen insight into the study of human nature and
emphasize on individual identity. However, these texts present a conventional understanding of identity
and do not evaluate it in terms of creativity and morality, yet the narrative and characterization in each
text makes for an adequate study for this particular research project.

Also in order to support my argument, I would also like to use the following reference texts in my
research:

Names of the texts referred :

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I propose to study the relation between being and becoming and investigate the influence of external
factors on identity and existence as shown in the play: In Spitting Distance. I would also like to analyze
how in the play, Dance Like a Man, the progress in the narrative, points to the presence of a core
identity of Jairaj under layers and layers of conventional roles and identity projections. Thereafter, I
propose to evaluate how our creative and moral potentials form the basis of a unique metaphysical core
of every human being as shown in Narcissus and Goldmund. Lastly, I would like present the idea that
how visible and perceived identifiables should not be mistaken for identity of an individual and form
only a part of the visible spectrum of identity. For this the study of the book Far from the Tree: A
Dozen Kinds of Love will be undertaken.

Significance of the Study:

To solely gauge the literary value of a work of art by its cultural and political strains, undermines the
power of literary imagination and its role in developing human values and potentials. Therefore,
acknowledging creativity and morality as crucial components of identity will help us to recognize the
metaphysical and philosophical value of literary texts and not just their social relevance or aesthetic
appeal. The moral appraisal of literary texts and works of art is one of the first ways to determine the
value of a literary text but the morality of literary characters should also be taken into account when the
question of identity is raised. Thus this research might help in overcoming the oversimplification of the
concept of identity that literary theory has presented us thus far. Moreover, the denial of a stable self or
a multivariate one by post-structuralists has proved to be practically inconsequential in understanding
art or the artists, therefore, accepting that there is a recognizable human core - an identity of an
individual - will be useful in developing the humanist thought further and finding more humanist value
in art.

Research Methodology:

I will be adopting a multidisciplinary approach to identity and use concepts available in Psychology,
Phenomenology and Existentialism. These would primarily include Erik Erikson's concept of identity,
Heidegger's concept of Dasein, Sartre's Mauvaise Foi or bad faith and Being-in-itself and Being-for-
itself. Along with the concepts mentioned, I will also be referring to the Realist and Post-positivist
approach as mentioned in the book, Reclaiming Identity: Realist theory and the Predicament of Post-
Modernism, to counter the post-modernist argument against identity. I would like to apply these
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approaches and concepts to highlight how identity of an individual is reflective in a state of agency and
not always in the state of subjectification.

Accounts of Works Already Done:

There is a tremendous body of work in philosophy dedicated to the study of self and identity. Similarly,
in literary criticism, the concept of identity has been widely used in evaluating literary works and
author’s lives. From the Hellenic concept of the true human self to the Hume's empiricist view of self
and identity or to the Existentialist's nihilist perception of self, we have been presented with various
concepts vis-a-vis identity. Philosophers such as Davor Dzalto from Bosnia and Herzegovina have also
explored the idea of creativity being essential to one's identity, by considering it as a cultural and
anthropological category and art or creation as an expression of personal identity of a human being. For
Dzalto, art and life need not be divided by a metaphysical border. Another fairly recent line of thought
that has been adopted with regards to the study of self is that of evaluating the self in terms of morality
- Charles Taylor's definition of identity (mentioned above) clearly lends a lot of significance to our
moral standings.

The works selected for my research have also been investigated and critiqued to show identity not only
as a social category or a cultural-politico framework but as an expression of creative and moral human
essences. It is seen in discovering the “divine essence of human self that is neither male of female”
(Critical Study of Mahesh Dattani's Stage Plays) in Dattani's Dance Like a Man, role playing v/s
political identity in Taher Najib's In Spitting Distance, defining social identity as a pigeonhole in
Andrew Solomon's work, Far From the Tree: A Dozen Kinds of Love, or a discovery of true self in
Narcissus and Goldmund,by Hermann Hesse. We can see that in each of the works the concept of
identity has been explored but the idea that identity is a realization that is reached by individuals not
through a social assessment of their beings but by living and bringing their true individual selves to the
surface through moral and creative acts has yet to be applied to these works.

Tentative Chapter Scheme

Chapter I – Introduction
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The introduction will present an overview of identity and the investigation of the concept by different
philosophers and literary critics. I would also like to show how humanism and phenomenology can be
used to understand identity better and provide us with more efficient tools in deciphering what it is to
be human and how one's identity is a manifestation of one's moral and creative faculties. I will also
point out how the identity (of an individual), especially since the volatile political moments and the
post-modern paradigm shift in the 20th century, has primarily been acknowledged as a social category.
Its understanding has been far too dependent on social factors whereas the individual and what sustains
him or her from day to day has been ignored or left to the precincts of philosophy and rarely found a
voice in the critical analysis of art and literature. Exploring this metaphysical aspect of identity,
understanding the idea of being and the role consciousness and self-consciousness plays in the self's
interaction with the world in different literary texts, I wish to present a different approach to identity in
Literature. I will study four literary texts and showcase how these literary texts represent identity as a
metaphysical reality. I will be giving a brief view of my understanding of identity in the texts: Dance
Like a Man, In Spitting Distance, Narcissus & Goldmund and Far From the Tree: A Dozen Kinds of
Love. The following four chapters will be thematically divided and explore different aspects of identity
in the four texts.

Chapter II -

Being and Becoming - In the play In Spitting Distance, we find the existential duality of being and
becoming that has been explored in Western Existential philosophy. The idea that our external or social
realities are sometimes confused with our being can be clearly observed. The play touches upon the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict through a personal narrative of an Arab theater artist who tries to fly to Tel
Aviv from Paris. This man carries an Israeli passport but identifies with his Arab origin deeply. So
much so that he wants to go back to his homeland because he feels he is far removed from the terror
and wants to “pay his personal debt to the chaos.” However, his Arab identity is what triggers off a life
event wherein his actor identity or his creative self is called upon to overcome an uncommon life
situation. A critic, Daphna Ben-Shaul says, “his only refuge is his role as an actor and by just walking
quietly through the plane he self-consciously plays the role that the passengers assign to him.” This is
when the actor is prevented from boarding a flight on September 10 th, a year after the September 11
attacks. The play shows how the protagonist's moral standing with regards to the situation in his
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homeland motivates him to fly back to Tel Aviv and not only his Arab/ Israeli identity. We see the
political and the personal intermixing greatly in this play but also that identity of an individual is not
just a product of a socio-political conflict or event but an agent capable of controlling his or her own
destiny even when overpowered by national/ international historic situations, thus the actor becomes
the being that he is.

Chapter III

Creative Potential and Imposed Identity Moulds – The play Dance Like a Man by Mahesh Dattani,
portrays the case of a stifled identity in the character of Jairaj – the protagonist. Jairaj wants to pursue
his career in Bharatnatyam but is discouraged by his father's disapproval and wife's ambition. The play
reveals how conventional identity moulds disembark the individual from fulfilling his creative potential
and force him to live his life as determine by his identity projections. When Jairaj's father, Amritlal
Parekh, says, “A woman in a man's world may be progressive but a man in a woman's world is
pathetic.” we see gender politics and restrictions imposing conventional role playing and forcing the
real identity of Jairaj to remain hidden because of the stifling of his creative potential. The patriarchal
identity moulds or identity projections make Jairaj suffer not only as an artist but also a personality
leaving him suppressed in every sphere of life.

Chapter IV:

Identity Projections – The Visible/ Manifest Spectrum of Identity

This work of non-fiction by Andrew Solomon offers a completely different understanding of being
human and identity that each and everyone is privileged to have. By presenting a study on families of
disabled children, prodigies, transgenders, lesbian, gay, schizophrenics, autistics, criminals, etc. he
shows us how identity projections which are more often than not conceived from externalities can be
limiting for us in fully connecting and existing harmoniously with those who are different from the rest.
Identity etymologically implies sameness to a group but he showcases how apparent differences can be
psychologically and emotionally disabling in recognizing the potential for sameness in people with
socially isolating characteristics and acknowledging the other abilities that also forms part of their
identity. The book which investigates essential differences that are more pronounced and deterrent than
that of race, gender or class makes for a relevant study in the present thesis. This chapter will set out to
show how identity projections are only visible or manifest parts of the spectrum of universal human
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potentials whose expression and realization are identity.

Chapter V -

True Identity V/s Imposed Projections in Narcissus & Goldmund –

– The hugely popular novel of Hermann Hesse is not about opposing personalities but about finding the
real self and discovering an identity that forms the core of our metaphysical existence. Superficially it
may be a conflict between the intellectual and the sensual but there are thematic strains in the novel that
show a very different kind of quest – a quest that is undertaken by Narcissus to reveal Goldmund to
himself. Goldmund it seems has been living vicariously with an identity, not of his own, but one that
was framed by his father's hopes, wishes and insecurities about his own past. Narcissus helps him by
revealing Goldmund's real self and provides a greater insight into the potentials we have and the ones
we do not fulfill unless our true being is revealed and acted upon.

Chapter VI

Conclusion – I would like to conclude with the idea that identity is not a restrictive but a
transformative and revelatory force with manifold potentials and should not be defined only in terms of
social categories or cultural frameworks. It should be understood In terms of our potentials as human
beings and how successful are we in realizing them.

Dualism is one of the most widely used approaches to comprehend identity. We conceive of the human
being as one having an inner and an outer self and create a sort of metaphysical gap between them. We
deny accepting that the outer is as much an expression of the inner self and is sustained by the inner
self which in itself is an awareness, a functional I – experienced and experiencing, lived and living and
acted and acting out in our everyday lives. I would like to propose that identity is simply is, a unified
persona – a reality that is evident when we exercise our creative faculties and moral power while
interacting with the world.

This line of thought will also help us in overcoming the cultural, racial, gender, class and other barriers
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and encourage us to perceive the author as a human first and then as a politico-cultural presence
suspended through time and space. Such re-visioning of identity will cultivate in us the shared potential
that Vico pointed out: to be other than who we are. As this very potential not only enables us to
empathize with others and thereby understand different literatures but also reveal to us our own core
identity under the layers of identity projections.
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