The Nature of Identity in “The Grapes of Wrath”: A postmodern Study

Abstract

Background: In modernism framework, identity is viewed as a fixed, essential and centered essence inside the mind of human and all his behaviors and characteristics are originated from this mental essence, while the post-structuralists see identity as multiple, contradictory, and changing over time.

Aim: The purpose of the current study is to analyze the fragmented nature of the characters of “The Grapes of Wrath” on postmodern bedrock, where the nature of identity of all the characters is treated in singularity. The study further displays that as a text may have contradictory meanings, hence the characters of the text cannot be imprisoned within the domain of a single identity, but at each flow of the unrepeated time segment, the nature of identity keeps on changing.

Method: The researchers aim at scrutinizing the selected novel through a postmodern outlook, where it opens texts up to alternative readings, i.e. to look for neglected and marginalized elements in texts especially the aporias.

Results: The study wants to bring to picture that a text never achieves closure, but it is an open field of any possible learning with unpredicted interpretations. It shows that by challenging the tradition of the Metaphysics and resisting the imposed logos of life, all the biased and politicized stumbling blocks may be removed from the routine path of the natural growth of the characters of the novel, and the same thing may be applicable to the life itself.

Keywords: Identity, Post-structuralism framework, multiple meanings, metaphysics of presence, Social Identity Theory.