An identity is more than just a name. Sometimes an identity is the first thing and possible the only thing a person notices about one or the other. A person’s identity can represent their culture, their race and sometimes, even possible their family background. My identity is what represents me. For those who does not know me personally but knows my name, knows my identity. This identity is what people will recognize me as for now and possible for ever.
When people create different identities, it may be to distort reality. People may create identities to fulfill fantasies or just to impersonate others(in other words, distorting reality). Everyone has done it whether it was from acting in a skit or creating a false photo identification card or just giving someone a fake name. All of those above are different ways of distorting reality and different ways of changing an identity.
“The Count of Monte Cristo” is a book which contains few characters but many identities. Edmond Dantes if not the main character, than one of the main characters kind of has a reality dysfunctional problem. In the book, Edmond Dantes creates various identities to fulfill his missions(fantasies). One of the few characters that Edmond Dantes transformed into was Sinbad the Sailor.
At the beginning of the book, while Edmond was still Edmond Dantes, he work and pursued his career on a ship. The guy at which he worked for soon became in debt because his shipping business was going out of business. Edmond Dantes payed off this shipping guys debt under the name as Sinbad the Sailor. Edmond accomplished this mission under a different name so his former boss wouldn’t know that Edmond Dantes was really the bill savior that Sinbad the Sailor has became. Edmond Dantes changed his identity to pursue, perhaps a fantasy. Edmond wanted to give back to those who gave to him. He changed his identity for the better. He changed it to help out instead of to destroy.
Edmond Dantes also took on the identity as a Priest. I would say Edmond miss used the power of a priest because he used his power and the trust of others within him and gather information out of individuals. Most people have trust for priest and Edmond Dantes knew this as he accomplished the transformation from himself to the priest.
Just another Crazy Woman on the edge of Time
Just another Crazy Woman on the edge of Time
In Woman on the edge of Time, by Marge Piercy, a middle aged Chicana woman from New York finds out that she a can communicate with the future. She finds herself able to be in more than one time. She is, as far as we know, the first to be able to do this. There were others, but they all closed themselves off, thinking themselves insane when the “voices from the future” began to speak. Connie’s connection was probably simpler because of the similarities between the world in which she lived now (in the mental hospital) and the world of the future.
The societal systems of the two worlds are very similar. If you exclude the doctors of the mental hospital, all are equal. Each ward can be a different village, with different cultures and governmental systems. Connie moves from ward to ward in her time as she moves from town to town in Luciente’s time. In each ward (as in each village) she learns something new. In the first, she gives up and accepts. In the second she survives and struggles to keep her sanity. In the third she learns the necessity of the fight. Each ward has something new to experience. In each village, she learns a new idea/concept/truth about the way her world (outside the hospital) really is instead of how she sees it.
In the mental ward, there is no economic system. Sure, money exists, but it doesn’t come from inside the ward. It is an alien thing; a luxury as are all of the others. The wards that Connie lives in are all filled with their own luxuries. In one, you find card tables and cards, puzzles and chairs. In another ward there are separate rooms and bathrooms with doors, all of which are shared by the general public (the patients). There is no special treatment. Who ever wants to use the cards or the puzzles can. Almost like the dresses/costumes that are rented from the library in Mattapoisett time. There, we use bicycles as we find them. “Any bike not in use, I can use.” (p 364). If the cards aren’t being used buy someone else, you have every right to use them.
People are just as free. Relationships in the future are a bit more open than those that Connie has had.