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The Meaning Of Identity In Toni Morrison's Beloved

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“COMING OF AGE” ISSUE IN BELOVED& EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED In the novels of Beloved by Toni Morrison and Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, we have very different characters living very different experiences. Two of these characters, Denver and Alex, go through the similar process of growing up, changing, transforming into their real identities with their experiences. We meet them when they have no constructed identities for themselves. Altough their circumstances, cultures and families seem quite different, we will see the similarity of their stages of maturity. First they are immature persons who are dependant on their families, then they struggle to construct their identities and finally transform into persons they did not expect at all. Denver is a daughter of Sethe, who was a slave to a white family until she became free. She has never had the experience of the slavery and she is brought up in a yard called 124, where she and her mother lives alone. …show more content…

And this is the turning point for Denver to get out of this pre-odipal state and become an individual with a self independant from this group. She initiates herself to life, takes a step to become an identity and gets out this yard to save their lives. First she gets help, then she starts to work. When she encounters with Paul D, we see the maturity in her feelings as she does not dismiss him, but this time she directs him to her mother. She has become an independant woman who takes care of her family in terms of both financially and spiritually. Not just for her family, but she also begins to do something for her new self. She is studying to get into college, which shows us that she is a grown up person with her future hopes, possible hopes unlike the ones she had in 124. This also shows that she is not afraid of hearing anymore. She will be a part of the community again where they will talk but she will hear, and perhaps answer this

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