From the Identity Crisis to the Crisis Identity: The Rite of Identities in the Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

Abstract

After World War II, the strategies of critical theories and literary texts, which have been simultaneously oriented to underline or displace all the essentialist understanding of identity that sees only one social category as the defining feature of an individual’s or community’s cultural identity and thus emphasizes on the fixed and discoverable essence or fundamental nature of an individual, point out a representation-identity crisis. In this context, this study tries to read Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook as the rite of identities by which different identities are experienced and questioned in the process ‘from the identity crisis to crisis identity’. Through the experimental possibilities of the Notebooks, which also define the structure of the text, Anna, the editor, writer and character, is always in a process of ‘becoming’, neither inside nor outside any identity, but always on the border. She is a ‘fragmented, bracketed’ subject. However, various forms and themes as the implications of ‘identity crisis’, which traverse throughout the novel, manage to create a Lessing-like ‘crisis identity’ at the end of a very complicated process.

Keywords

• fragmented/divided identity, identity crisis, crisis identity, Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook.

Kimlik Krizinden Kriz Kimliğine: Doris Lessing’in Altin Defter’inde Kimlikler Geçidi

Abstract

II. Dünya Savaşı sonrası eleştirel teorilerin ve edebi metinlerin, eş zamanlı biçimde, tek bir toplumsal kategoriyi bireyin ya da grubun kültürel kimliği için belirleyici olarak gören, böylelikle bireylerin ya da grupların değiştirilemez ve keşfedilebilir bir öze, temel bir doğaya sahip olduklarını vurgulayan özcü kimlik kavrayışlarını zayıflatmaya ya da yerinden etmeye yönelik stratejileri, bir temsil ve kimlik krizine işaret ederler. Bu bağlamda çalışmamızda, Doris Lessing’in Altın Defter’ini ‘kimlik krizinden kriz kimliğine’ açılan bir süreçte farklı kimliklerin deneyimlendiği, sorgulandığı bir ‘kimlikler geçidi’ olarak okumaya çalışacağız. Metnin yapısını da belirleyen “Defterler”in sağladığı deneysel olanaklarla editör, yazar, karakter Anna, bir kimliğin ne içinde ne de dışında, daima sınırında bir ‘oluş’ sürecindedir.‘Parçalanmış, paranteze alınmış bir özne’dir Anna. Yine de ‘kimlik krizi’nin açılımları olarak romanı baştan sona kateden çeşitli parçalanma/bölünme biçimleri ve temaları, karmaşık bir süreç sonunda Lessing’e özgü bir ‘kriz kimliği’ni üretecektir.

Keywords

• parçalanmış/bölünmüş kimlik, kimlik krizi, kriz kimliği, Doris Lessing, Altın Defter.

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