Assignment 1.. IDENTITY - Essay Example

defined as an animal that can say ‘I’, that can be aware of himself as a separate entity.” In this case man has to make decisions in relation to his awareness of himself and his surrounding neighbours as different persons. Thus, Fromm (1966) posits that the need for relatedness, rootedness and transcendence forms a very strong identity background that is vital and is often imperative for every man to be able to identify himself in society. Different people often hail from different cultural backgrounds hence the notion of identity helps these people determine their way of behaviour in relation to others with a different identity.

In simple terms, identity can be referred to as the collective aspect of the set of characteristics by which an individual or any other thing is definitely recognizable or known. The underlying principle is the sense of being a unique individual, distinct from others or of belonging to a certain group which obviously has different values from another group. There are several factors that are taken into consideration in the creation of identity. These include shared culture, shared values, shared symbols as well as class and gender structures in some instances.

All these factors often give rise to what is termed collective identity. According to Popper (1963), collective identity would therefore, refer to a certain group of people who share the same cultural values and behaviour as well. Thus, in light of the above argument, Mukherjee’s case is not in any way totally divorced from the notion of identity. Basically, she identifies herself with the Hindu culture which defines the identity of the people in Calcutta, India in several ways. First and foremost, she grew up in a patriarchal society where man was always above woman.

In this case, all decisions of substance were the sole responsibility of men. The neighborhood was also absolutely Hindu where identity was fixed and often derived from their own religion, language and caste.