Individual Identity in Philip Roths The Ghost Writer Essay -- Ghost W

Individual Identity in Philip Roths The sense of touch Writer The theme of self, an individual authentic unique individuation element, seems to be constantly questioned and challenged in Philip Roths The Ghost Writer. We are presented with several portraits of deviceists, writers and would be writers, whose notion of self is in most significant manner tied to their art. Rather than knitting together a unified (rehabilitated?) concept of self, aesthetic creativity, art, complicates and further problematizes the issue of personal identicalness. Art at the similar time undermines and underscores insights provided by a supposedly seamless master narrative. The creative impulses and ideas which inhale an artist to create may have little or nought to do with the meaning or meanings assigned to the art itself by a virtually endless chain of interpreters. Writers are thus distanced from their texts at the same time an audience, a reader, is constructing an identity f or him/herself and for the author based on the text. Nathan Zuckerman, the narrator, is cause to become a great reinvigoratedist because in part of his romanticized notions of writing and writers. His identity becomes entangled in the works of E.I. Lonoff. Nathan rejects the pleas of his father to place his identity as a member of a family and as a Jew above his identity as a writer. Evoking Joyces Stephen Dedalus, Roths Nathan Dedalus places his identity as an artist above otherwise concerns. He seeks a new intellectual/spiritual father in Lonoff. First from Lonoffs writings and then from the personal encounter with Lonoff himself, Nathan confides that by emulating Lonoff in all aspects, he will become more like the view identity he has created as his goal. Lonoff... ...sentative of a larger group, concept, or commodity. This wisecrack first promoted by her writing is a reference of both hope and agony. Amy seeks meaning from within her fragmented existence. Where Nathan is brought to the edge of this discovery as the novel progresses, Lonoff retreats from it. Literature is adept at describing and cultivating a fragmented sense of identity it can motivate others to actions/extremes never sought by the author. Put simply, art encourages interpretation. As writers, each of these three characters is aware of the fact that unity or singularity of interpretation is rarely (if ever) achieved. When also applied to an individual identity such interpretive freedom/ambiguity can be the source of both strength and despair. The notion of self, though perhaps less alone by the end of the novel, still houses a potential for meaning.