The Problems in Construction of the Identity in Transcultural Literature

Identity is never very important in a life until the identity is lost. It is this concept of loss

that runs deep in transcultural literature. According to Wikipedia it is defined as “seeing oneself

in the other,” it is in turn described as “extending through all human cultures” or “involving,

encompassing, or combining elements of more than one culture” (Wikipedia, 01). The loss of a

past, a culture, a way of life is the tragedy that marks the lives of the affected people. It is also

this loss that leads to the loss of an identity for the trans cultured people in literature. The

constant struggle for identity in transcultural and multicultural literature leads to many twists and

turns in literature. While it is true that the struggle for identity is a universal struggle, the

identity is certainly a struggle with extenuating circumstances. If it was not for the power

struggle of the world the whole struggle for identity would not be as severe. It must also be

remembered that while it is easy to dwell on the struggle perhaps the results of the struggle for

identity will be more positive than negative. The key is to never stop trying to learn and never

stop trying to understand the plights of others, only then can one really grasp the differences in

others.

The study of transcultural and multicultural literature inherently involves the study of

identity. Identity becomes the fulcrum upon which the transcultural character revolves. Each

character that is created suffers from a certain lack of direction in their lives. According to

William Davis they all seem to “suffer a crisis of identity in the absence of a strong traditional

culture of their own” (Davis, 101). This crisis of identity, while not uncommon in other

literature other than post-colonial literature, is most severe when viewed in transcultural

literature. It is the idea that the identity of an individual is so malleable that transcultural

literature focuses on. The identities of its characters are mired in the struggle to form an
emotional, cultural, and societal identity that reflects the experiences of a distant past they cannot

recall.

Identity becomes an overwhelming emotional force in the character’s lives that begins to

drive every action that the characters take. This search for a true identity forces their decisions

and guides their lives in directions that seem almost irrelevant. The struggle for an identity apart

from the power struggle becomes paramount. In the works of Derek Walcott, Bharati

Mukherjee, and Jamaica Kincaid one can view this struggle for a cultural, societal, and

emotional identity through each of the characters portrayed in the novels. As a postcolonial and

transcultural writer, Walcott’s poems reflect a struggle to find a cultural and societal identity that

once existed. It is the struggle to find “your heaven” in the past that he relates in his poem “The

Divided Child” (Walcott, 145). This struggle with the past for an identity is further deepened in

Mukherjee’s novel Jasmine. It is in the novel that the main character Jasmine avows to the belief

that one should “Let the past make you wary, by all means. But do not let it deform you”

(Mukherjee, 131). Jasmine is a transcultural character that does not dwell on the past like so

many others. It is her belief that one should acknowledge the past but more forward into

life. Both Walcott and Mukherjee agree that the past is a force in the lives of their

characters. They differ, however, in the function that the past will serve in their character’s lives.

Each of the authors allows their characters to struggle for a place in a cultural world they

feel is alien to them. Some characters struggle with the past they know and the future they hope

for, as Jasmine states she “wanted to become the person they thought they saw” (Mukherjee,

171). Other characters struggle to make a mark in a world they feel left out of, such as Lucy in

Lucy who wanted “to have a powerful odor and would not care if it gave offense” (Kincaid,

18). Even Walcott’s poetry expresses the belief that we live in “the clear glaze of another life, a
landscape locked in amber” (Walcott, 145). The struggle to invent an identity in a culture where

they feel left out and slighted creates characters whose lives are difficult and random. The

struggle for a place in a culture where they truly have no place, unless they create their own, is a

common struggle in transcultural literature. It is the struggle to reconcile the cultural past they

lost through colonization and the cultural future they intend to make. It is this struggle that

becomes a matter of releasing a distant and cultural past they only know from stories of the past

before colonization.

Transcultural literature also relates the struggle to find a place in society apart from the

colonial influences of the past. Lucy dreams of “finding the place you are born in an unbearable

prison and wanting something completely different from what you are familiar with, knowing it

represents a haven” (Kincaid, 95). The idea of a place separate from a society created by the

transcultural power is the goal of all transcultural characters. It is the search for separateness, for

liberation from the constraints of a society, which pushes Lucy forward in life. It is also this

search for another life that Walcott alludes to in his poem when he compares the transcultural

existence to “a book left open by an absent master in the middle of another life” (Walcott,

145). The trans culture have created society and it is something completely foreign to the trans

cultured. It is this strange societal foreignness in a place they once knew so well that creates the

struggle for identity. The recreation of an identity they once had that is now lost forever in the

forward momentum of society.

Transcultural and multicultural literature relates to the world, the struggles of those who

have been affected by colonized or have themselves settled in other countries. It clearly

articulates the struggle of transcultural individuals to create a place in the world. To find a place

in a society where your past before colonization is completely forgotten is a difficult task
indeed. This task can leave you bitter, like Lucy, malleable like Jasmine, or reflective like so

many of Walcott’s poems. It is this difference in ultimate experience and ultimate results that

leads to such diversity in postcolonial outcomes. While the belief that life is difficult is an axiom

to be lived by, there are lives that are more difficult than others are. This distinction is important

and should be remembered by all those that attempt to study transcultural literature. The past

once remembered is a glorious thing, but one cannot live in the past and expect to survive in the

future.

Works Cited

Davis, William. Identity. Cadenza Press, 1969.

Kincaid, Jamaica. Lucy. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990.

Mukherjee, Bharati. Jasmine. Grove Press, 2007.

“Transculturalism.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Apr. 2019,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transculturalism.