IDENTITY

Human Experience and Identity

Human Experience and Identity

How individual experiences shape interpretations, especially interpretations of identity

Our individual experiences play a great role in forming our opinion and perceptions of the things around us. It is through this that we give meaning to the world around us. Our identity and even that we give others is the consequence of our experiences that we have in our life. It is through our experiences that we give meaning to the world around us. For instance, a very good example in this regard is given in the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns written by the famous author by Khaled Hosseini. In the bestselling novel the author discusses the role of individual experiences on identity though the main character of the novel, Mariam. Mariam is a harami or an illegitimate child born out of wedlock. She is the result of the physical unison between her father who is a very well to do man in Afghanistan and her mother, the domestic servant of her father. Since, the time Mariam is young; her father's family disowns the unwanted Mariam who is forced to live with her mother in a Kolba. Since, she is aware of her status as an illegitimate child, she suffers throughout her life, and is unable to value her own existence. Hence, her identity is trashed for the rest of her life, not only in the eyes of the society and her spouse, but in her own eyes as well.

In this context, it is imperative to state that not all experiences that shape the identity for a person are the first hand experiences of a person. Sometimes, it is also the experiences that we see people around us having. In the same context, the role of media cannot be undermined. Media plays a ...