IDENTITY

Professor’s name
Student’s name
Course name
Date
Identity
It is often difficult to tell a person’s true motives, agenda or personality. This difficulty may be as a result of the secrecy of the individual in consideration, where he wishes to conceal his true self, or due to his confusion. This is to say that someone may be confused as to who he or she is, and their actual self will only be evident when faced with a somewhat challenging circumstance. A person’s true identity may, therefore, remain a secret for quite a long time until it doesn’t. You will be surprised at how little you know even when it comes those we consider as our closest relations.
Ernest Hemingway, in the old man by the sea emphatically highlights this idea when he writes,” He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream, and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish” (Hemingway and Miller 2007.)Many people struggling with identity crisis often find themselves as not being appreciated by society, or that their efforts yield nothing despite their hard work. This is precisely the case with Hemingway’s protagonist Santiago. The old fisherman is portrayed as someone who is struggling with too much in his chosen profession. He goes on many fruitless fishing expeditions, the result of which ends in him being deserted by his younger and more energetic partner who may well have been his good luck when he encountered his biggest catch yet, Marlin.
Sometimes people are shaken into rethinking their identities without their express wish.

This was the case with Hughes’ purse snatcher. Although she was initially angry at first, the woman said, “You ought to be my son. I would teach you right from wrong. Least I can do right now is to wash your face. Are you hungry?” (Mandal, Chandi 2015) the boy could not comprehend the compassion shown to him by Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones, a complete stranger he had just offended. While under her care, for the brief moments in her house, the boy was one confused mess and the friendly lady tried to ease him by confessing that she too had done an embarrassing thing during her youth. Although not captured in the story, it is safe to assume that the boy learned his lesson from the big-hearted and motherly stranger.
People are not always who we think them to be. Even those we consider our closest confidants may, in fact, be the proverbial wolves in sheepskins. Shakespeare sheds light on the issue of the possession of a false identity in his play Othello. In the play, Othello’s enemy Lago masquerades as his friend. He tries to poison his mind when he says,” She did deceive her father, marrying you; and when she seemed to shake and fear your looks, she loved them most” (Strelbytskyy 2017.)He is keen to see that Othello’s union with Desdemona fails.
From the three texts, identity crisis has been highlighted a great deal by the different authors. Shakespeare shows us that even our friends may be our undoing behind our backs as was Lago’s case with Othello. On the other hand, identity crisis due to misfortune is addressed by Hemingway whereas Hughes deals with an unexpected identity rethinking due to a random act of compassion. In the same way, a person’s identity is primarily informed and shaped by his or her own experiences. What you are, or who you think you are, is therefore determined by what you have gone through.

References
Hemingway, Ernest Miller. The old man and the sea. Al Manhal, 2007.
William, Shakespeare. Othello. Strelbytskyy Multimedia, 2017.
Mandal, Chandi. “LANGSTON HUGHES’THANK YOU MA’AM AS A FEMINIST LITERATURE.” (2015).