In search of identity : the case of Kafka's Curse by Achmat Dangor

Bibliogr. s. 60-61

The question of identity is one of the fundamental issues raised in post-colonial studies. However, the identity crisis is not a phenomenon typical exclusively to post-colonial societies. The authors of the proposed essay believe that both the expressed dependency on the love tale about Laila and Majnun, as well as the reference made in the title of Achmat Dangor’s Kafka’s Curse could perhaps be read as an indication that problems connected with searching for one’s ‘pure’ identity presented in this book are not constrained to post-colonial world only. The main aim of the proposed essay will be to demonstrate the obvious instability of identity in Kafka’s Curse, typical for human mental and emotional development, through the application of Richard Jenkins’ theory (Jenkins 2008) defining identity as a process of ‘being’ or ‘becoming’. Therefore, there should be no question of one’s identity, but rather of one’s identities. Through the proposed analysis, the authors would wish to present, how the multidimensional characters of the five stories cannot ‘plan’ their identities as their development continues through different stages of life, and that their identity therefore cannot be some fixed feature but it must develop in time as well as change based on a place and the circumstances, as according to Jenkins.