How do you describe identity

Who am I? How do you describe God? What makes a city? What is war? All seemingly simple questions, yet merely impossible to answer in all of their completeness. Am I a student? A daughter? A friend? Is God a spirit? A feeling? Is a city population? Buildings? Is war for good purpose? Is war more than just death? Carol Maso, an English professor at Brown University came to Loyola today to share a few excerpts, short stories, and essays that attempt to answer some of these questions .

One excerpt in particular struck me. She read a section from her novel AVA in which the main character discusses saints. She explains that the temptation to believe in saints and in God is great, yet the heart is like a pendulum to god. First swinging close, then away. She beings to try and define what a saint is, but finds that there is not just one way to describe them. She uses examples such as “saints hold a flame, music, fire, a globe, their longing makes a burning sound.” The authors inability to describe what a saint is merely by one description shows how not everything is easily identified or definable. She explains that saints are waiting for paradise to come. I was able to personally connect with her imagery of a persons love for god being like a pendulum. When I was younger I was extremely religious, loved attending church and felt I had a true connection with God. However, as I grew older and experienced death truly for the first time, I felt that I, like the pendulum, swung away from my faith. While I am not close to God currently, my hopes of receiving a Jesuit education is to help make the swing of the pendulum back into my spirituality. In Maso’s writings, the sentences are short, sometimes only consisting of one word. She lists anything and everything that come to mind when discussing a topic. This shows how she feels that just how saints cannot be easily identified, neither can ones faith. Faith can be felt and shown in many ways.

A common theme throughout all of Maso’s readings were the affects of war. In her first reading “Mothering during wartime” a mother speaks of her inability to express what is happening to her child. She cannot find the sense in war and longs to pray again. She feels she is merely living in a war zone and not a home. “Is that the sound of bombs, or a mother’s madness.” The story reveals that the speaker is living in Baghdad. The mother longs to take her child’s hand and make everything okay again. How do you explain war to a child? How do you identify and describe something so horrible, with so many different pieces.

This story made me think of 9-11. I remember sitting in my history class. We had just finished watching a video when the principle came onto the loud speaker. She asked that no one leave their classrooms because she had to make an announcement in each individual room. Never being the patient type, I asked to use the bathroom so I could see what was going on. As I walked into the hallway, one by one, children were walking out of classrooms crying hysterically. What could possibly be going on? I ran back to my classroom just as the principle entered. She stood there silent for what seemed like hours, the took a deep breath. “A plane has hit one of the world trade centers. We are not sure whether it was an accident or an act of…well…if it wasn’t an accident.” She then proceeded to read off a list of children’s names whose parents worked in the centers and asked them to come with her to the office. The class sat motionless. How could something like this not be an accident. Our teacher told us not to worry and turned quickly went to the TV to turn on the news. There, in my classroom, we watched as the second plane hit the world trade centers. The newscasters, the teacher, the students, we were all at a loss for words. How could words describe what we had just seen. Hysteria. Everyone immediately broke down into tears, and every student had to, just had to call their parents and make sure everything was okay. Fathers, Mothers, Uncles, all known to be in the centers or in the planes…yet no way to know if they were alright. As we waited outside to be picked up, we could see the smoke drifting down the river. It was real, in our face, but absolutely no words could every truly describe it.

Maso choose to share an essay with us, that she, also a New Yorker, wrote soon after 9-11. She wrote how she wondered if there would ever be peace in our time. She remembered the dust from the centers in her hair, she urged that we never forget what happened. She explained that she used to love to watch natural things fall, she loved to watch the rain, the snow, the leaves falling from trees. She told of how she would stand in New York City, looking at the Empire State Building, and then in one pivot, she could turn and see the World Trade Centers. She still pivots, but only an empty space awaits her. She explained how an event like 9-11 creates an identity for a city. It shapes what and who the city is. It makes it stronger. It gives it history. Throughout all of Maso’s pieces, she brings up the questions of what makes something’s identity, and how to describe that identity. As a student at a Jesuit college we are asked to ask ourselves these very questions every day. Who are we? What makes this city a city? What can we do to change ourselves and the world around us? I believe it is important to understand that every person will answer these questions differently, yet every answer will be correct. God is not the same to every person, happiness is not the same to every person, and life is not the same to every person.

In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night a major theme is identity. Each person’s definition of love is very different. While Viola feels that love should be fought for and proclaimed, the Duke feels he can send others in his place to show his love. Even more different is Malvolio, who uses love to gain social status. The theme of identity is also in the plot itself. In the play, Viola dresses as a man to work for the Duke, and ends up falling in love with him. The Duke however is in love with Olivia, who is in love with Viola, dressed as a man. What makes a person fall in love? Is it the physical appearance? Or is it deeper, is it the person’s heart, the person’s personality? What forms a persons identity? The play shows us that your outward appearance is not what forms your identity. Both Twelfth Night and the speech by Carla Maso show the different ways identity can be described and interpreted.