IN THE NAME
OF GOD
Vali-E-Asr University of Rafsanjan
Faculty of Humanities and Literature
Department of English Language
The Crisis of the Third World Man‟s Identity As a
Consequence of Diaspora in V. S. Naipaul‟s Selected Works
A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Master of Arts (M. A.) in English Language
and Literature
Supervisor:
Dr. Esmaeil Zohdi
Advisor:
Dr. Sohila Faghfori
By:
Mohammad Mostafa Ghanbari Maharlouee
March, 2014
Acknowledgements
I am greatly indebted to my supervisor Prof. Esmaeil Zohdi who patiently and
kindly helped me during this study. I am also grateful to my advisor Prof. Sohila
Faghfori without whom I could not complete this study. I dedicatedly would like
to thank my parents Asghar and Shamsi and my sisters Sedigheh and Raziyeh
for their understanding and co-operation not only in all phases of this study but
also in whole stages of my life. Finally, I would also like to express my
appreciation to my especial friend(s) who encourage me in this study.
TO THE CHEMOTHERAPY SECTION OF SHIRAZ
NAMAZI HOSPITAL AND THOSE WHO CHALLENGE
WITH CANCER.
ABSTRACT
The concept of identity has always been a controversial matter, and many
critics and scholars try to solve this problematical issue. Referring to this point,
Stuart Hall, a British Marxist cultural theorist, is one of those intellectuals who
elaborately penetrate deep into the nature of identity, but from a Marxist
sociological point of view. Accordingly, the researcher in this thesis endeavors
to examine Stuart Hall‘s lack of cultural maintenance and how the third world
man gets involved in identical problematical issues of an imperial/neo-colonial
society in two works of V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas (1961), which is
of main concern in this study, and a novella ―One Out of Many‖ (1971).
According to Stuart Hall, identity is a complex concept which is shaped by a
direct ascription of ‗personal choices, international events, and social
classifications.‘ In other terms, identity is reshaped by a cultural-ideological
exchange. Indeed, the significance of this study would be a reexamination of the
unquenchable hope of the third world man in the diasporic era in search of
having a firm identity. As the man entered the modern era, the matter of identity
became more highly challenging due to the advancement of technology and the
so-called processes of globalization and diaspora. These transformations force
the individuals, especially the third world ones, to question their identities in
order to fit into the culture of majority. This procedure can be in contradiction
with the immigrants‘ current beliefs in their culture and might pose many
problems, as they are trying to authorize themselves between the two presenting
realities. In this situation, the self, being caught up between two contradictory
cultures, faces a new subjectivity which is loose and fragmented. What the
consequence of such a clash would be is nothing more than a fully frustrated
diasporic self with no fixed identity.
Keywords: identity, Naipaul, Hall, diaspora, discourse, differentiation
Table of Contents
Content
Page
Chapter I: Introduction ..................................................................................... 1
1.1 Statement of Problem and Research Questions ......................................... 1
1.2 Review of Related Literature ..................................................................... 3
1.3 Significance and Objectives of the Study .................................................. 4
1.4 Methodology and Approach ...................................................................... 6
1.5 Thesis Outline ............................................................................................ 6
Chapter II: Hallian Identity: Various Outlooks .............................................. 7
2.1. General Background ................................................................................. 7
2.2 Hallian Theoretical Framework: Stuart Hall‘s Non-Conception of Identity
......................................................................................................................... 8
2.3 Hall as an Anti-Essentialist Scanner of Identity ........................................ 9
2.4 Identity in the Hands of Discourse, a FoucHallian Definition of the
Concept .......................................................................................................... 11
2.5 Differentiation in the Hands of ‗Diaspora‘ and ‗Globalization‘, a Parasite
of Identity ...................................................................................................... 14
2.5.1 Diaspora: A Parasite of Identity ......................................................... 14
2.5.2 Globalization: Another Parasite of Identity ....................................... 16
2.5.3 Diaspora and Globalization: The Head and Tail of Identity .............. 17
Chapter III: The Crisis of Identity in A House For Mr Biswas & “One Out
of Many” ............................................................................................................ 19
3.1 General Background ................................................................................ 19
3.2 The Third World Man in Search of a ‗House‘ ......................................... 20
3.3 Hanuman House, the FoucHallian Discourse of Biswas‘ Identity .......... 23
3.4 Biswas vs. Different Strategies of Identity Crisis .................................... 25
3.5 Santosh, a Diasporic Self ......................................................................... 28
Chapter IV: Conclusion ................................................................................... 31
4.1 Summing Up ............................................................................................ 31
4.2 Results ..................................................................................................... 33
Content
Page
4.3 Suggestions For Further Readings ........................................................... 35
Works Cited ...................................................................................................... 37
Chapter I: Introduction
1.1 Statement of Problem and Research Questions
In the sociological studies, the concept of ‗diaspora‘ is very determining in the
consciousness of those migrants who expatriated through choice or compulsion. Such
studies investigate the problematic changes of the third world man and the ways that he
constructs his way of the knowledge of the world. For this man, the past is a dreamy
land, and the present is an ex-country. Being excluded from his society, in one hand, the
third world man, in this new society, compares himself with those inhabitants who have
achieved more privileges; on the other hand, he feels that he has betrayed his own
descent. In such a situation, identity will be definitely determined by cultural-ideological
exchanges.
This situation signifies the challenging issues of the third world man‘s identity. This
identity is acquired in an unstable cultural discourse that could be comprehended in the
Canon of Diasporic literature. Diasporic literature, itself, involves a problematical set of
discussions and a concern for homeland and the production of a new subjectivity,
adapting to power. In a broader term, diasporic literature studies the configuration of a
new subject that is called by the social critics and theorists as the third world man. This
new man is being caught up between the interactions of social groups and the influence
of their cultures.
Over the past few decades, the study of identity became more important in the field
of cultural studies. Many critics insisted upon the ‗artificiality‘ of identity. One of the
most influential theorists and critics of cultural studies who claimed the ‗artificiality‘ of
identity, is the Jamaican scholar and the British Marxist Stuart Hall, who himself
transplanted his roots in the soil of imperial Britain since 1951. He puts his endeavor to
study that the root of man is rooted in the relations of power. Hall strictly argues upon
the interpretation of individuals by ideology. In this aspect, Hall considers identity as a
2 | Ghanbari Maharlouee
vague and problematic concept. He agrees that by the emergence of postmodern
thoughts, the concept of individuality lost its ideal meaning. In this era of contradictions,
the human being is fated to have not only a dialogical character, but a multiple one. By
uttering this, he means that man‘s personal and public lives are exaggerated in his
endeavors to define himself with and versus the discourses around him.
In such a period, entities are defined by their inter-subjective relations with others;
they perceive themselves in a set of reciprocal cultural exchanges. It is here that the
identity would definitely be a construction of discourse. Unquestionably, it is a fact that
in societies divided by the memories of political violence, economical sections, and
ethnicity diasporas, identity will be absolutely a multi-perspectival notion. Considering
this fact, Hall‘s works cover issues of hegemony and cultural studies, taking a postGramscian stance. He regards language-use as operating within a framework of power
institutions and
politics/economics.
This
view
presents
people
as producers and consumers of culture at the same time. Concerning this fact, Hall refers
to the notion of identity under the influence of cultural exchanges. Hall investigates the
matter of identity and how it is in challenge with social forces around it. James Procter
in Stuart Hall (2004) describes this attitude of Hall in these words: ―For Hall, the study
of [identity] involves exposing the relations of power that exist within society at any
given moment in order to consider how marginal, or subordinate groups might secure or
win, however temporarily, cultural space from the dominant group‖ (1). Hall argues that
the story of identity is not something that can be narrated part by part; in return it is an
incomplete and ongoing ways of the surveillance of discourses at self.
From these regards, V. S. Naipaul, as a major diasporic author, mainly addresses the
issue of the third world man, and the cultural matters that this man may encounter. He is
an Indian in the West Indies, a West Indian in England, and a diasporic self in an
imperial world. During his literary career, he tends to portray the third world man as a
displaced entity. He portrays this man as a ‗cultural production‘ who is in search of a
firm identity in a marginalized unprivileged society of Western World. By placing man
in such a condition, Naipaul argues the puzzling condition of the third world man in
twentieth century. Naipaul puts his main and longstanding maintenance upon writing on
account of identity crisis. Autobiographically, being too much concerned with the matter
of ‗cultural hybrids‘, he lays his finger upon the ‗transplanted‘ people; he writes about
those entities who ―flee to a metropolitan land; those who cannot, flee in imagination,
taking refuge in scattered fantasies of metropolitan provenance‖ (Nixon 133). Naipaul‘s
major works carry us into contemplation on the essence of self‘s identity, because he,
himself, is condemned to have a fragmented identity. His excessive practice of defining
identity recurring in many of his novels prompts a sense of the instability of the third
world man‘s case, because he himself is a subject of this uncertainty. Penetrating deep
into the nature of individuals is one of the main concerns of Naipaul in his works.
Significantly, he is very fascinated with the cultural condition of his characters and how
the social events shape the identity of individuals.
According to this perspective, this study overlaps two of Naipaul‘s major works: A
House for Mr. Biswas and ―One Out of Many‖, and how the identities of diasporic
characters of these works are being shaped under the influence of cultural issues. In
other words, the self boundaries are defined by the illusions of societies. In these works,
Ghanbari Maharlouee | 3
Naipaul directly questions and examines the issues behind the transformations of the
third world man‘s identity under the influence of cultural, economical, and ideological
exchanges. In brief, this thesis will be an attempt to prove Naipaul‘s portrayal of man as
a displaced entity in search of an identity based on Stuart Hall‘s argumentations of the
notion, especially since it is in crisis. In these two works, Naipaul depicts that the theme
of identity crisis is prevalent not only in non-white unprivileged third world societies,
but also in developed privileged societies.
Research Questions
The researcher, with a regard to Hallian‘s view toward the matter of identity, in this
study which is a reexamination of Naipaul‘s A House for Mr Biswas and ―One Out of
Many‖ seeks to provide reasonable explanations for the following questions:
1. How does Naipaul depict the protagonists of these works are culturally discouraged?
2. How does identity form when the cultures clash?
3. To what extent Stuart Hall‘s definition of identity is relevant to the present study?
4. How does Naipaul clarify the boundaries between the self-construction and
socio/cultural construction of the subjects?
1.2 Review of Related Literature
This study is an elaboration of two fictional works by V. S. Naipaul which are
considered as semi-autobiographical. The first one, for which he is awarded the Nobel
Prize, is A House for Mr Biswas, and the second one, on which the researcher has a
succinct account, is ―One Out of Many‖.
A House for Mr Biswas (1961), which is often regarded as Naipaul‘s masterpiece,
tells the tragicomic story of searching for independence and identity of a Brahmin Indian
living in Trinidad. Mohun Biswas has been unlucky from his birth, but all he wants is a
house of his own—because it is the solid basis of his existence. The story, through
fusing social comedy and pathos, follows his struggle in a variety of jobs, from sign
painter to journalist, to his final non-resulting triumph. This novel is a depiction of Mr.
Biswas‘ illusory and absurd life.
Again, Naipaul in ―One Out of Many‖ (1971) develops his perspective that the
absolute freedom in big consumer societies is nothing more than a futile, failed, and
meaningless concept. It is an argumentation of self beyond the geographical
circumstances. ―One Out of Many‖ is a novella set in ‗Washington, capital of the world‘.
The themes of displacement and dependency once again are over-spreading in this work.
This is mainly the story of a journey that literally and figuratively narrates the
misadventures of an Indian servant who does not particularly like his situation. This
character is clearly fully aware of the disastrous displacement that he, as a frustrated
entity, is encountered with, and he attempts to ride ahead of it; yet his thought is largely
turned inward onto the mythology of his existence and the narration of his essence as if
he sought purposeful ignorance of everything else.
There are many critics and scholars who question the identity of individuals in
general and Naipaul‘s works. For instance, in her doctoral thesis, ‗Towards a New
Geographical Consciousness: A Study of Place in the Novels of V. S. Naipaul and J. M.
4 | Ghanbari Maharlouee
Coetzee‘ (2010), Taraneh Borbor, maintains that the frustration of Naipaul‘s character is
the result of living in a different cultural context. She maintains that the clash of cultures
makes a new identity for the diasporic man. Such a clash leads to the namelessness of
the third world man. Another worth-mentioning critic and researcher who laid his
endeavor upon V. S. Naipaul is Kumar Prag. In ―Identity Crisis in V. S. Naipaul‘s A
House for Mr Biswas‖ (2008), Kumar Prag delineates that this novel deals with the
matter of identity, especially when it is in crisis. In this work, Prag has tried to analyze
the themes and motifs that are tangible in Naipaul‘s magnum opus, A House for Mr
Biswas. He examines that the crisis of the third world man‘s identity is a ramification of
the clash of cultures. Moreover, Muhit Kumar Ray, in his influential book, V. S.
Naipaul: Critical Essays (2005) fully investigates the matter of identity in some of
Naipaul‘s major works. Muhit Kumar Ray‘s critical analysis is concerning the cultural
identity and the ideological issues that shape the subjectivity of individuals. In his study,
Ray has endeavored to justify that the cultural issues have a great influence upon
Naipaul‘s major characters. Having a close affinity with the field of cultural studies
makes this book to be among the main contributors of the theoretical body of this
research. James Procter in Stuart Hall (2004) studies Hall‘s view of identity. In this
book, which is very determining in this study, Procter examines Hall‘s different
perspectives toward the notion of identity. It is here noting to mention Rob Nixon‘s
London Calling: V. S. Naipaul, Postcolonial Mandarin (1992) as one of the most
influential books on V. S. Naipaul‘s life and works. In this influential book, Rob Nixon
gives a sketch of Naipaul‘s situation as an expatriated in the metropolitan London. He
examines why Naipaul has put his finger upon the matter of the third world man‘s
identity. In addition to a historical-biographical account of Naipaul, Nixon gives a finish
to the Naipaul‘s philosophical worldview toward the nature of man. However, this book
is considered as a key expert in the subject of this study.
Conversely, the researcher, in this study, would examine how Stuart Hall‘s
characterization of identity is applicable in making the identity of Naipaul‘s characters.
Since living in a diasporic condition, the Naipaul‘s characters are facing many problems.
1.3 Significance and Objectives of the Study
The principal concentration of this study would be a sketch upon the notion of
identity, especially when it is in crisis, and how it is dealt with the construction of
individuals. From the very beginning of creation, discussions over the problematic issue
of identity and its aspects continue till it comes to Stuart Hall to wrestle with. Stuart Hall
proposes a definition of this focal concept in Questions of Cultural Identity (1996) as a
―…‘production‘, which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted
within, not outside, representation‖ (222). What could be the outcome of such a
worldview toward the essence of identity? Is identity objectively something stable with a
pre-fixed configuration? Is identity a malleable and subjective constitution which gets
shaped through the interaction with the social forces? To what extent Stuart Hall‘s ideas
are relevant and applicable to this discrepancy? However, this study would be a
justification of the above-mentioned questions.
We live in a transnational and multicultural world. In such a fluid atmosphere, the
issue of identity would be highly important to investigate. By globalization and vast
Ghanbari Maharlouee | 5
immigrations, the numbers of cross-cultural encounters are highly increased. In this
peripatetic milieu, people, especially the marginalized are subject to hard strife for a less
disadvantageous condition. Therefore, to overcome this dissatisfaction, they involve in
getting various presentations of identity. The concept of ‗identity‘, from this regard, is in
direct interaction with the individuals and their epoch. Gender, race, class, political and
historical discourses are the grounds where identities are fashioned. This process is
observable through individuals. This transformation of self is dangling between man‘s
disillusioned subjective experience of surrounding and other contexts that he deals with.
People in this cosmopolitanism, either consciously or unconsciously, take refuge under
the shades of socio/cultural contexts to gain a (hyper)real sense of who they are or to
comprehend their position in their social contexts. The boundaries of these identities are
mutable. These identities are built symbolically. Thorough this angle, identity deals with
someone‘s feeling about home, ethnicity, and belonging; but as we live in an everchanging cosmopolitan world, and regarding the scopes of culture, the issue of cultural
identity (one may call it so because it is in direct relationship with the context of
‗culture‘) would be a contradictory matter. By the early twentieth century, and with the
advent of devastating Wars and over-explosion of the socio/philosophical theories, the
world encounters a huge cultural and essential crisis. This matter largely affects both
Westerners and non-Westerners. This overlapping catastrophe leads the fate and lives of
people to be involved in a new discourse which is referred by the social critics as crisis
of identity. In this loose and divergent space, new ideologies and identities are emerged;
the result of such emergences is an increase in the rate of movements and
communications. Analogously, in this new discourse, identity is something situational; it
interplays between individual‘s experience of its surrounding and the
social/cultural/historical setting in which its subjectivity is being shaped. As the
international immigrations increased and the socio/geographical boundaries extended,
the new people of communities face a variety of complex cultural challenges. Here the
man is supposed to accord his idealistic horizons with those of the society to build an
identity. Therefore, the self, by losing his freedom, makes a new identity.
The social theorists, actively, discuss the matter of identity. They believe that the
classical or humanist concept of identity is going to be deteriorated. In this perspective,
the modern man is encountered with the disintegration of identity. He is supposed to be
understood as a fragmented self. This change of critics‘ attitude toward the nature of
identity is nominated as ‗the crisis of identity‘. Such a predicament in nature of identity
challenges all theories and fundamentals that observe the man as a stable and fixed
creature. Due to the transnational cultural exchanges, the sense of coherence and
integrity of identity is being problematized. This crisis of identity is because of abundant
cultural topics and debates. Such debates as anthropology, vast immigrations,
globalization, etc. pose this question whether identity is an essential and coherent
concept or not, or is it a disintegrated subject which is a socio/cultural construction?
With deterritorialisation of societies, especially those which have many large immigrants
and no regular pattern, and by the advancement in the number of immigrations, the self
lacks any sense of integration. The self sees himself as a wanderer over the ladder of
cultural identity. Such a man cannot gain a regular pattern for his identity; because this
man is in a clash between his inherent culture and the challenges of the new culture.
6 | Ghanbari Maharlouee
Consequently, such a man encounters a crisis of identity and sees himself as a
fragmented and isolated creature.
The aim of this study revolves around the notion of identity, the time and reason it is
in crisis, with an especial focus on Hall‘s sociological and anti-essentialist
conceptualization of the term. The researcher, through a brief survey of Hall‘s outlines
of identity, has tried to demonstrate that identity is a matter of ‗becoming‘ in the fictions
of V. S. Naipaul, especially A House for Mr Biswas, and ―One out of Many.‖ What can
justify the selection of these works is the similarity of their thematic implications in the
canon of diasporic literature; such a kind of literature concerns the matter of the third
world man‘s identity.
1.4 Methodology and Approach
A library method is used in the present study to provide a practical analysis of the
crisis of the third world man‘s identity in the works of V. S. Naipaul, regarding a
postcolonial phenomenon called ‗diaspora‘. However, post-colonialism is not the main
approach of this study. The researcher would rely upon the outline of diaspora, with a
little deviation from its public comprehension. To do so, this study is a thorough
understanding of cultural study and a deep reading of Stuart Hall‘s identity theories in
practice. This study is helpful to use the cultural matters as an influential category of
forming identity.
1.5 Thesis Outline
As a matter of fact, the present study divides into four chapters. The first part
concerns with the main argument (statement of problem) of this thesis, and the
objectives of this study. The second chapter which is titled as ―Hallian Identity: Various
Outlooks‖, first of all, gives a short account of Stuart Hall‘s life and works; then, the
researcher tries to scrutinize Stuart Hall‘s different outlooks toward the matter of
identity. It surveys Hall‘s definition of identity from an anti-essentialist point of view.
The third chapter, ―The Crisis of Identity in A House for Mr Biswas and ‗One out of
Many‘‖, deals in detail with the conceptualization of identity in regards with the
confrontation of the notion with various discourses. But before reaching to this point, the
researcher renders a synopsis of V. S. Naipaul‘s biography and attitudes. This chapter
argues that the construction of Naipaul‘s protagonists of these fictional works is under
the impact of subjects‘ interactions with the social discourses. This chapter, even, is an
exploration of the looseness of the third world man‘s identity. Finally, the fourth chapter
of this thesis elaborately seeks to find plausible outcomes propounded in the objectives
of this study. In other words, one may come to a comprehension of objectification of self
in the unprivileged third world societies as the main concern of this chapter. This chapter
concludes that the matter of identity is challenging in both westerns as well as nonwesterns.
Chapter II: Hallian Identity: Various Outlooks
Gramsci described this articulation as 'the starting point of critical
elaboration': it is the consciousness of what one really is, and in 'knowing
thyself' as a product of the historical process to date which has deposited an
infinity of traces, without leaving an inventory. „Identity marks the conjuncture
of our past with the social, cultural and economic relations we live within.
'Each invididual is the synthesis not only of existing relations but of the history
of these relations. He is a précis of the past.'
Stuart Hall
1. Introduction
This chapter is an approaching of the diverse aspects of identity crisis regarding the
Hallian concerns of the notion, yet, before its discussion, a short account of Stuart Hall‘s
life is given. Then, the researcher examines those aspects of Hall‘s view toward the
notion of identity that are dealing with the matter of ‗discourse‘. Accordingly, this
discussion begins with a surface look at the Hall‘s overall theoretical project concerning
the concept of identity. The forming skeleton of this part revolves around Hall‘s
Questions of Cultural Identity (1996) coedited with Paul Du Gay; however one should
keep in mind that Hall‘s ―Cultural Identity and Diaspora‖ is the epitome of Hall‘s
sociological framework. Afterwards, this discussion overlaps the socio/cultural account
of the construction of identity.
2.1. General Background
Stuart Hall (1953-2014), ―one of the most vocal and persuasive public intellectuals in
debates on Thatcherism, race and racism‖ (Procter 2) and the ‗godfather of
multiculturalism‘, was a cultural theorist and sociologist who lived in the United
Kingdom since 1951. Hall, along with Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams, was
one of the founding figures of the school of thought now known as British Cultural
8 | Ghanbari Maharlouee
Studies. In Jamaica, he attended Jamaica College and with the help of sympathetic
teachers, he expanded his education to include T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Freud, Marx,
Lenin and some of the surrounding literature and modern poetry as well as Caribbean
literature. He continued his studies at oxford by beginning doctoral courses on Henry
James. In 1968, he became director of Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University
of Birmingham. He wrote a number of influential articles in the years that followed,
including Situating Marx: Evaluations and Departures (1972) and Encoding and
Decoding in the Television Discourse (1973). He also contributed to the book Policing
the Crisis (1978) and coedited the influential Resistance Through Rituals (1975).
After his appointment as a professor of sociology at the Open University in 1979,
Hall published other influential books, including The Hard Road to Renewal
(1988), Formations of Modernity (1992), Questions of Cultural Identity (1996)
and Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (1997). Through the 1970s and
1980s, Hall was closely associated with the journal Marxism Today in 1995; meantime,
he was a founding editor of Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture.
In 1990s, his writings spin around the notions of ‗identity‘, ‗diaspora‘, and
‗ethnicity‘. He concludes that the construction of self is being, especially in the modern
era, a matter of ideology. Consequently, ideology narrates the essence of individuals. As
an anti-essentialist, Hall ostracized this belief that identity has any essence. Regarding
his Leftist sociological frames, he talks about culture as a battlefield of the struggle
between self and social discourses. Relying upon Foucault, he brings the term
‗discourse‘ into being. It should be noted here that in stance of Hall‘s sociological
Gramscian Leftist tendency toward the notion of identity ‗discourse‘ is a broader
expansion of the Gramscian ‗hegemony‘; from this angle, it includes a comprehensive
and complex set of rituals, ideas, beliefs, and customs that surround and submerge the
masses. By uttering ‗discourse‘, Hall aims at the conceptualization of identity through
politicizing. The researcher by choosing Naipaul‘s A House for Mr Biswas and ―One Out
of Many‖ would practically examine Stuart Hall‘s ideas regarding the fragmentation of
‗identity‘.
2.2 Hallian Theoretical Framework: Stuart Hall‟s Non-conception of
Identity
As man entered the twentieth century, new waves of sociological and cultural
theories on the essence of identity revolutionize the studies. These studies penetrate deep
into the nature of man with more emphasis upon his relationship to the dominant
discourses of the community in which he is lived or acquired. The social critics and
theorists keep on one‘s mind that this new conceptualization of identity is a direct
consequence of the interaction of the self with the social discourses spread over the
society. They keep themselves severely aloof from what the essentialists have defined as
identity. On the contrary, these scholars maintain that identity is ―artificial in the sense
that is manufactured [and is a] product of an endless series of interactions and
exchanges‖ (Bertens 175). From this point of view, identity can be considered as a oneside mediation of the self with the social rehearses and organizations and it is sequenced
by an unconscious domination of the latter. In this regard, Greenblatt defines ―[Identity
Ghanbari Maharlouee | 9
as] the product of a negotiation between a creator or class or creators, equipped with a
complex, communally shared repertoire of conventions, and the institutions and
practices of society‖ (175).
Over the past few decades, the study of identity has become more important in the
field of cultural studies. Many critics insisted upon the ‗artificiality‘ of the identity. One
of the most influential theorists and critics of cultural studies who claimed the
‗artificiality‘ of the identity, is the Jamaican scholar and British Marxist Stuart Hall, who
himself transplanted his roots in the soil of imperial Britain since 1951. He put his
endeavor to study that the root of man is rooted in the relations of power. Hall strictly
argues upon the interpretation of individuals by the ideology. In this aspect, he considers
identity as a vague and problematic concept. He insists upon this fact that identity is not
a pre-existing notion; in turn, he thinks of it as an incomplete construction which is
―always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation‖
(Rutherford 222). He strongly believes that the notion of identity is an ‗ongoing‘ product
of the power, which, under the influence of culture and society, can never be finished.
He continues that identity not only can be a product of the dominant ideologies around
it, but also can be constructed in the lens of one or more subcultures. Hall widely
maintains that the self is a constructed notion. Besides that, he continues that identity is
the result of an exchange between one‘s ‗actual presentation‘ and the discourses of
power that he/she be a part of (Bertens 179). Hall is a loyal follower of Marx. Like
Marx, he believes that we, the agents, are context-bound. He objectifies that what we
represent is nothing more than a determination injected by the power. Specifically our
behaviors are an inclusion which is defined by the system; such would be what we think,
what we say, and what we write. Hall clarifies that every subject may have the
‗condition of existence‘ relentless of the horizons of discourse; but, in accordance to his
idealistic Marxist maintenance, the subject can gain meaning just through the discursive
ideologies (Morley et al. 39). According to Jorge Larrain, Hall articulates that subjects
are not able to produce ideology; rather, it is ideology in the form of ‗practices and
rituals‘ that leads the subjects to be constructed (47). For Hall, identity is a ‗symbolic‟
subject which is being abstracted by the discourses and the narratives that are injected to
the masses by the dominant ideologies of the power. Hall elucidates that identity is not
touchable even in our imagination.
According to Stuart Hall, identity is not a translucent concept. For Hall, identity is an
incomplete production that is always progressive. Instead of identity, Hall adopts the
alternative world of ‗identification‘ to emphasize the importance of conditionality of the
term against the process of self-making (Malathouni xii). By this pre-view of identity the
researcher aims to shed light upon another perspective of Hallian wisdom toward
identity, i.e. what the anti-essentialists have in their minds toward the concept.
2.3 Hall as an Anti-Essentialist Scanner of Identity
In this section the researcher renders Hall‘s another idea toward the notion of identity
which is a supportive of what has been mentioned so far-- that is Hall‘s sociological
framework in the way of identity constitution. In this section, the researcher also tries to
10 | Ghanbari Maharlouee
investigate what Stuart Hall has generally persisted upon the notion of identity from an
anti-essentialist point of view.
Hall points out objectively that by the notion of identity one may bring into being
two different discerns. The first outcome of the definition of identity from this
perspective is what the essentialists shed light upon. That is a vast complex of costumes
and behaviors that people of the same ethnicity share. This definition is a highlight of the
―common historical experiences and shared cultural codes which provide us as ‗one
people‘‖ (Rutherford 223). This form of identity is constant and definitely a matter of
being. The essentialists remind one of the fact that identity first appeared as primordial.
Archetypically, this kind of identity cannot be transformed or problematized. They
appear naturally. People of the same race, homogenously are condemned to share these
subjectivities in the same manner. But, Hall‘s second contribution toward the very
definition of identity—thus it seems he favors this one due to his pure Marxist beliefs—
is to look at identity from the lens of an anti-essentialist. In this perspective ‗identity‘
deals with the matter of ‗becoming‘. This identity is not a predetermined concept by
which a group of people can share common horizons of expectations. Like any historical
event, it, arguably, undertakes alteration. What arises from Hall‘s ascription of identity is
the objectivity of the term that always takes shape and reshapes in the hands of such
discourses as ‗history, culture, and power‘ (225). In accordance with this view of Hall
toward identity, one would touch the instability of cultural identity. He strictly believes
that cultural identity is not a ‗universal and transcendental‘ definition. ―It is not onceand-for-all. It is not a fixed origin to which we can make some final and absolute
Return.‖(226) Contradictory with what the essentialists considered as the
conceptualization of identity, Hall prefers the notion of identity as a ‗sociological
subject‘ which is not independent and self-reliant. For Hall, in Modernity: An
Introduction to Modern Societies (1995), identity is a formation of the subject due to its
relationship with ‗significant others‘ (597). Here, one comprehend that for Hall
―[identity] has no essence; it only has meaning by virtue of that which is excluded as
different or Other. Similarly, Hall argues that ‗race‘ should be understood not as
referring to some genetic essence, but as a ‗floating signifier‘, whose meaning is never
fixed‖ (Hammond 12).
In this regard, identity is constructed when the self interacts with the society. The
subject may have ‗an inner core or essence‘, but this ‗essence‘ is a result of the
encounter of the self with the external world (Hall: Modernity, 597). Hall brings to the
light the fact that today‘s meaning of identity is far from what the essentialists
considered as the subjectification of identity. Essentialists held strongly upon the
centrality of man and his/her unification of individuality. This man is at the center of the
universe ―with the capacities of reason, consciousness, and action‖ (597). They add that
these potentials ―first emerged when the subject was born, and unfolded with it, while
remaining essentially the same-continuous or ‗identical‘ with itself throughout the
individuals‘ existence‖ (597). The essential center of the self was a person‘s identity. On
the contrary with this view and from Hall‘s perspective, identity is a continuous form of
our representation in our relationship with the social/cultural systems around us. ―[I]t is
historically, not biologically, defined. The subject assumed different identities at
different times, identities which are not unified around a coherent ‗self‘‖ (598).
Ghanbari Maharlouee | 11
Hall highlights that the matter of identity and how it is formed unconsciously is an
endless process of postmodernism. Accordingly, it seems that, for Hall in his influential
book, Questions of Cultural Identity (1996), a definite definition of identity is possible
just in a non-essential manner: identity is a loose, variable, and fragmented concept that
might be considered ―in the process of becoming rather than being‖ (4). He elaborates
that identity is an ―anti-essentialist critique of ethnic, racial and national conception of
[culture] and the ‗politics of location‘ [made] some adventurous theoretical conceptions
have been sketched in their most grounded forms‖ (2). Stuart Hall maintains that
identities are produced in the context of history and society. Identity is not shaped as an
‗essence‘, but it is being accepted by individual as a ‗positioning‘ (Malathouni xii).
2.4 Identity in the Hands of Discourse, a Fouchallian Definition of the
Concept
In this section, which is the main focus of this thesis, the researcher continues his
discussion of Hall‘s thoughts of identity by relying upon one of the main ideas of a
French critic and theorist, Michel Foucault (1926-1984). Even though Michel Foucault,
the influential and representative French critic and thinker, does not directly address
identity, he sheds light upon many terms among which one, significantly, found a way to
Hall‘s worldview of identity. For Foucault, the language of power and discourse paves
the way for the construction of identity. ―Indeed, the central theme of most of Foucault‘s
works was the methods with which modern civilization creates and controls human
[identity]…‖ (Habib 766). Through foregrounding this succinct outline of Foucault, this
section discusses Hall‘s another conceptualization of identity which overlaps his
previous ideas in this study.
The Western culture is a shallow land where there is no unified concept. It has been
made up of different cultures. It is a time of globalization that individuals observe clash
of cultures. Here, this question may be posed that how can one gain a real and unified
sense of identity? Is individuality something inherent or is it artificial? To what extent
can the self intervene in its construction? By the emergence of postmodern thoughts, the
concept of individuality lost its ideal meaning. In this era of contradictions, the human
being is fated to have not only a dialogical character, but also a multiple one. By uttering
this, one means that man‘s personal and public lives are exaggerated in his endeavors to
define himself with and versus the discourses around him. In such a period, entities are
defined by their inter-subjective relations with others; they perceive themselves in a set
of reciprocal cultural exchanges. It is here that the identity would definitely become a
construction of the self. Unquestionably, it is a fact that in societies divided by the
memories of political violence, economical sections, and ethnicity diasporas, identity
will be absolutely a multi-perspectival notion. Here the discourse of recognition will be
an equivalent of the imposed discourses by the surrounding. From Hall‘s perspective,
―…modern identities are being ‗decentered‘; that is dislocated or fragmented‖
(Modernity: an Introduction 596). By pointing out this, he maintains that identity is a
result of subject‘s displacement or decentering.
As a consequence of postmodern era, one cannot have a true and stable definition of
identity and because of this vast experience of interconnectedness, the man interacts
12 | Ghanbari Maharlouee
more with various cultures. Consequently, the local identities are corroded, and to use
Hall‘s words, ―new identities of hybridity are taking their place‖ (619). Admitting this
fact, identity is not a self-sufficient concept that might be a speaker of it. Moderately, it
is a concept which gains meaning through the outside world. Hall adds that the
multiplicity of identity not only in the western nations but also in the non-westerns is the
consequence of ―multicultural constitution of modern nation-states as well as the
emergence of trans-national forms of culture‖ (Malathouni xiv). Regarding this aspect of
identity, Stuart Hall, and representatively a great number of the critics of cultural studies,
believes that identity is not a pre-existing indispensable self which can be articulated and
represented openly; on the contrary, identity, subjectively, is being made up inside the
different discourses. For them, identity is not a single subject; rather, it is fashioned as an
unstable, fragmented, and a contingent subject. From these regards, Hans Bertens in
Literary Theory: The Basics (2001) proclaims that the construction of self is to a large
extent upon how it is ―subject to power relations and how it always functions within
larger structures (179). ―As Hall [himself] remarks: ‗Far from being eternally fixed in
some essentialised past, [identities] are subject to the continuous ‗play‘ of history,
culture and power‖‘ (Stratton 4).
Hall takes a step further and claims that books, films and so on are reproductions of
the ‗real world‘ in which one is passing the life. On the other hand, Hall argues that this
world is nothing more than a play of discourses. According to Hall, identity is a free
translation of the ―subject into the flow of discourse‖ (Questions 6). Hall, alternatively,
suggests that the subject can signify its meaning just through representation. He adds
that ―representations are not reflexive but constitutive‖ (Proctor 125). Therefore, for
Hall, ―[identity] has been constituted or constructed as such through the dominant
regimes of representation adopted and ‗normalized‘ by institutions such as the media‖
(126). It is perfectly tangible that Hall by propounding ‗media‘ wants to highlight his
insistence upon the power of discourse on the construction of identity. For Hall, ‗media‘
is a notion equivalent to Marx‘s ‗ideology‘ and Gramsci‘s ‗hegemony‘. And here, to
reinforce the ‗artificiality‘ of identity, he strictly relies upon what Foucault called a
‗discursive practice‘. Referring to the notion of ‗discursive practice‘, Stuart Hall avows
that identity is an incomplete construction which is always ―‘in process‖‘ (Questions 2).
M. A. R. Habib in A History of Literary Criticism (2005) asserts that by the very notion
of ‗discursive practice‘ Foucault aims at defining identity ―…as a kind of [non-entity]
situated within a complex of cultural discourses –religious, political, economic, [and]
aesthetic…‖ (761).
It is worth mentioning that Hall observably has a Foucauldian tendency toward the
notion of identity. Like Foucault, he historicizes the category of identity. By alluding to
the ‗historicization‘ of the subject, he sheds light upon the subject as a production
―through and within discourse, within specific discursive formations, and [then] has no
existence, and certainly no transcendental continuity or identity from one subject
position to another‖ (Questions 10) Hall announces that
…identities are never unified and, in late modern times, increasingly
fragmented and fractured; never singular but multiply constructed across
different, often intersecting and antagonistic, discourses, practices and
Ghanbari Maharlouee | 13
positions. They are subject to a radical hoistoricization, and are constantly
in the process of change and transformation (4).
Elaborating on Foucault, Hall argues that the ―discourses construct subject positions
through their rules of formation‖ (10). Hall continues that for a better understanding of
identity one must move ―within, not outside, discourse‖ (4). He agrees with Foucault
that the emergence of identity is totally centralized to the matter of ―agency and politics‖
(2). By politics, he expresses that with the appearance of ‗modern forms of political
movement‘ identity would be in clear touch with the ‗politics of location‘ (2). As a
result, identity would be an unquenchable problematized quest of the self in the way of
recognition which is unquestionably challenging and instable. By agency, he ignores the
centrality of identity as a canon of concentration; in return, he comes to an understanding
of what Foucault would call ‗a theory of discursive practice‘ (2). Hall says: ―I use
‗identity‘ to refer to the meeting point, the point of suture, between on the one hand the
discourses and practices which attempt to ‗interpellate‘, speak to us or hail us into place
as the social subjects of particular discourses, and on the other hand, the processes which
produce subjectivities, which construct us as subjects which can be ‗spoken‘‖
(Hammond 12). It is in Hall‘s favor that identities are shaped in the established historical
exchanges ―within specific discursive fantasies and practices, by specific enunciative
strategies‖ (Questions 4). Consequently, he announces that ―[i]dentities are thus points
of temporary attachment to the subject position which discursive practices construct for
us‖ (6).
From what has mentioned above one may come to this result that the self is a
production and it is directly under the influence of the discourse. The identity of human
psyche is a result of interaction with a society full of various contexts. In this
perspective, self is not able to speak, but, contrarily, discourse enables the self to speak.
It means that identity gains a true sense of agency just by the voice of discourse. The self
and individuality is an ever-made socio/cultural production. Now, it may posture this
question that what is the role of free will in the construction of the subjects? Do the
masses have any influence in the production of their subjects?
The sociologist and cultural theorist Stuart Hall has noted this fact that although the
subject wants an authorized identity, one cannot acquire a disciplined pattern for his
identity, because the societies and structures, for fulfilling their goals, are regularly
changing the mechanism of their ideologies. Therefore, the inclined man sees himself in
a halo of beliefs and disbeliefs, and the definition of an independent identity would be
impossible for such a man, as Hall says: ―ideological categories are developed,
generated and transformed according to their own laws of development and evolution‖
(Hammond 11). Since ideology is a fluctuating and uncontrolled scope, then, arbitrarily,
identity is a matter of discourse construction. Therefore for Hall, ―the battles over
identity are caught up in complex networks of power and ideological circuits‖ (Stratton
2).
Hall concludes that the diversity of human behavior, accordingly, is the result of
various socio/cultural contexts. He also adds that ―… [t]he post-modern subject,
conceptualized as having no fixed, essential, or permanent identity‖ (Modernity 598).
The (post) modern man is revitalized to gain multiple identities as one should represent