Self and Other and Identity
The search for identity is rather complex and daunting, but once found, it is one of the most beautiful and fulfilling feelings in the world. Ironically, identity deals a lot with interactions and how one acts with other people. In other words, identity stems from the relationship of self and other. This paper will discuss a series of books in which the protagonist of each struggle finding their identity whilst encountering people, daily routine, and social normality.
Chloe Bass’ Wayfinding explores the big questions and intimate wonderings of everyday life regarding human interaction through outdoor signs. It is an outdoor art exhibition that includes a rally of signs that were situated around a park located in the heart of Harlem. The signs were either declarative statements or questions; both, however, still managed to make one think critically about the true meaning behind the words plastered on the transparent billboard. For instance, one question was “How much of love is attention?” This question is open to interpretation as everyone has their own definition of love and the amount of attention that decides to put into that love is up to them and the given relationship. Most would answer that love is attention and therefore, all of love is attention. When one loves someone, giving that person attention is a given as it would happen naturally; if attention is viewed as a quantitative aspect in the relationship, then it’s not “love.” Another sign read, “I only agreed with you so I can go to sleep.” This sign is for all the people who have interacted with the ignorant. The ignorant stay ignorant because they choose to ignore every sensible detail that comes out of the mouth of their counterpart. There’s no point arguing with these people because they aren’t going to change their mind, so why waste precious time and breath. We’re better off just sleeping, but the problem is the ignorant wouldn’t let us get away easily. We would have to agree with their nonsense to give them satisfaction and us, the prevention of sleep deprivation. Bass’ signs make one question and ponder upon the big complexities of life such as love, ignorance, happiness, and life itself.
Bass decided to ask these questions to ignite emotional, personal, and social interaction. An interaction is an exchange between two or people. Interactions allow for ideas to spread between people. The signs suggest that interaction can happen anywhere; it can even happen at a park. This is probably one of the reasons Bass decided to ask these questions in a public way. The signs also dwell on the negotiation of interactions because every interaction is a negotiation. All interactions happen with a purpose and motive behind whether that motive is clear or not. What it means for interaction to entail a negotiation is a negotiation wouldn’t happen if there wasn’t any interaction at the start. Communicating with the other party allows negotiation to prosper within the conversation. For instance, when two friends meet to catch up, interaction is taking place where the negotiation would be each person sharing a portion of their life. The signs itself allows an interaction to happen amongst the students and the professor in class based on the meaning of the signs. Everyone negotiated their own interpretation of the signs and those interpretations were then discussed and taken further by the professor. The concept of self and other is all about interaction and communicating with others to later tackle conflict within the self through negotiation.
Bass furthers her discussion of identity, language, and interaction in her book, Signs Preceding the End of the World. This book discusses the inner and outer turmoil the protagonist, Makina, faces when crossing the border between the United States and Mexico. The novel dwells not only on the technicalities of the border, but the difficulties of those who cross it. Coming into a new country means a new way of life, a new language, and new interactions. In chapter 5, there is a short passage that explores the intricacies of language. It is Makina’s first encounter with the Mexican Americans. She is shown to be a bit more comfortable around them as she notices familiarities in their language. However, a part of her still feels left out as their language doesn’t exactly resemble her native tongue. Language isn’t just a collection of words; it’s about familiarity and the ability to make a person comfortable to be in the place where that language resides. The nature of identity stems from the place in which the person feels most comfortable and at home. A slight change can hinder someone’s ability to communicate effectively with someone. This means that one’s self isn’t properly addressed when interacting with others and that can negatively impact an individual as they aren’t able to properly communicate their ideas. Another passage in the book that connects to this theme of self and other is in chapter 4 where Makina notices the culture of America. She notices the heavy desire of Americans to consume and accumulate as much as possible. There’s a high sense of individualism, but barely any figment of community, unlike Mexico. She sees the obvious social distinction between White Americans and Mexicans. Her “self” then feels threatened and intimidated by her new surroundings and the culture that she is now surrounded with. Bass’ work suggests the struggle in finding identity and place in a society that works to divide and promote hierarchy.
Mrs. Dalloway is a novel that highlights the many exchanges between the different characters in the book to discuss their interactions and how they impact the characters. The book follows a format that deals with each character’s stream of consciousness. Clarissa Dalloway who is also known as Mrs. Dalloway is one of the main characters of this novel. She is married to Richard and is currently in her 50s. Readers follow this character the most in the book. She is a society woman and cares a lot about what other people think about her. She, however, dwells on the deeper questions in life and its purpose. She wonders about the meaning of life. She often questions the current state of her life and thinks about the what if’s. Even though she cares a lot about her upper-class status, her curiosity for the world is what separates her from her society. She finds comfort looking at her old neighbor across her house who chooses to sleep for majority of the book. She comes into terms with the inevitability of death and prevails to endure life until her own innate death. This book brings awareness to the absurd and meaningless nature of societal expectations and life.
There are two passages in Mrs. Dalloway that narrate Mrs. Dalloway’s search for identity and purpose. She has a lot of interactions with multiple people in the book where she presents herself in a different persona with each character. In fact, at the beginning of the book, it is mentioned how she “is always giving parties to cover the silence.” She throws parties not only to stay up to par with her high society but to conceal the silence in her life. When there is silence, there is room to make noise and her thoughts are her noise. Her thoughts don’t fit with society; therefore, she doesn’t want anything to do with them. She conceals a part of herself because of the fear of others. This passage is important when thinking about self and other because it shows how society can fill in meaningless noise in one’s meaningful silence. Still, Mrs. Dalloway self isn’t entirely concealed from everyone as there are still two characters that know about the real Clarissa who is curious and intuitive. However, that’s the case only because she allows herself to be herself around them. Her interactions with them are more genuine so her “self” is more comfortable when she’s around these specific “others.” Another passage that is important to the topic of self and other is when one of the characters in the book says, “It might be possible that the world itself is without meaning.” If the world is meaningless, then there is no point of the notion of self and other as that too would be meaningless. However, this is why it is important for self and other to exist so it can add meaning to what may seem like a meaningless world to some. Meaning is found from within one’s thoughts and these thoughts can be heavily impacted by the interactions one has with others.
All three texts are similar as they all reveal the importance of self and other and its relation to identity. Chloe Bass’ Wayfinding has signs that showcase the questions and dilemmas people face whilst living life. It displays the process of questioning the value of life and everything that comes along with it such as love and happiness. Bass’ second piece of work, Signs Preceding the End of the World, also deals with daily encounters as the protagonist tries to navigate the new world that was brought upon her with the same questions and thoughts mentioned in the signs. She tries to decipher the language in her new world as a means of trying to eradicate the difference between her “self and other”;Wayfinding does so by asking questions that deal with interactions. Finally, Mrs. Dalloway ties both themes of the previous texts perfectly as it includes a variety of characters with different dilemmas. The book narrates their struggle in finding the meaning of life through interaction they have with other characters in the book. All three texts deal with interaction.
Although all three share the same idea concerning self and other, they are different in execution. Wayfinding is different from the other two texts as it comes in a different medium. It follows the format of an art exhibition. This text proves to be much more accessible as one can just glance upon it when going through the park and start to read the content. Bass’ first work also comes in 1 sentence questions and statements rather than paragraph-long passages. It serves to be shorter in content than the other two, but still just as powerful. Bass’ Signs Preceding the End of the World is a fictional book that has an essential plot and a protagonist. Even though Mrs. Dalloway also comes in the same medium, both texts are different in style. Mrs. Dalloway doesn’t have an essential main plot as it dictates the everyday life of 6 main characters. The whole book follows a stream of consciousness for each of its characters making the text less a story and more so a dictation of people’s thought processes. Bass’ book also has one narrator while Mrs. Dalloway has six.
The concept of self and other is apparent no matter what medium the theme comes in. It can be plastered on a billboard or written in between the pages of the book, the relevance of the ideal will still manage to shine through. It’s interesting to see that even while having these differences, the texts all have the same message and deal with interaction. Identity is the main topic for these texts and the struggle of finding identity in society is shown. It was interesting to connect each text to self and other and further decipher their passages and statements into themes of identity.
This paper discussed the interactions within three different texts that all shared the same theme of self and other. The books dealt with the protagonist struggling to find their identity whilst encountering people, daily routine, and social normality. The art exhibit shared the struggle and made the viewers of the exhibit the protagonist as one tried to figure out the meaning behind the question by putting oneself directly in the dilemma. When the connection between self and other becomes clearer, the acquisition of one’s true identity becomes easier.
