Comparative Study: Theme or Issue: The Theme of Identity
Each of the characters has a moment of revelation.
Room
The biggest blow to Ma’s sense of who she is comes about when she allows herself to be interviewed for a television show. The interviewer asked her if she ever considered asking Old Nick to take Jack to a hospital and leave him there so he could be put up for adoption, claiming, ‘Every day he needed a wider world, and the only one you could give him got narrower’. Ma had always considered herself a good mother and had shaped her identity for five years around the belief that she was doing the best that she could for Jack. Until the interview, she had never thought that she was the one keeping Jack imprisoned in Room and she is utterly heartbroken at the suggestion that, far from being a good parent, she was possibly no better than Old Nick, in her own way. Ma, of course, is so vulnerable at this stage in the text that she is incapable of separating her sense of self from the interviewer’s analysis of her situation. Not only has she made Jack the focus of and reason for her life, but she has never had that belief challenged up to this point. Ma is so distressed by this view of herself that she attempts to take her own life.
A Doll’s House
The principal difference between Room and ADH is each character’s reaction to the belief that they have been living a lie. Nora comes to see that sacrificing her sense of self has led to a shallow existence with no strong foundation, while Ma is horrified to learn that building her life around Jack may have harmed him. Both women see that their shaping their identity around the needs of others may have had the opposite effect to that they had intended.
Nora’s sudden realisation that Torvald is more concerned with saving ‘the remains, the fragments, the appearance’ of a marriage and happy family life than he is in understanding the reasons for her taking out the loan shows her that she can never be true to herself if she stays with him. While Ma’s distress leads her to attempt to leave the world together, Nora chooses to leave her husband. She refuses to accept being treated like a ‘doll-wife’ any longer and to exist ‘merely to perform tricks’ for Torvald. She tells him that she must ‘stand quite alone’ if she is to understand herself at last. Torvald objects, saying Nora is a wife and a mother above all else, but Nora says she is ‘a reasonable human being’. Her moment of revelation has shown Nora that she needs to make up her own mind about matters and form a strong, independent identity.
Casablanca
Rick’s moment of revelation is less sudden than in the other two texts and is the culmination of an idea that has been gradually building in his mind rather than a bolt from the blue. His reunion with Ilsa slowly rekindles Rick’s moral code and he moves from an isolationist viewpoint to one of self-sacrificing idealism. The turning point for Rick comes when Ilsa visits his apartment to get the letters of transit and tells him that she loves him still and that she will ‘never have the strength’ to leave him again. After their conversation, Rick knows why Ilsa had to abandon him in Paris, but he is also keenly aware that without her, Lazslo will struggle to carry out his resistance work. Both these facts bring out the best in Rick. He once again becomes the man of whom we caught glimpses earlier in the film: the ‘sentimentalist’ who ran guns to Ethiopia in 1935 and fought on the Loyalist side in Spain in 1936. Rick’s re-embracing of his heroic identity is less traumatic for him than Ma or Nora’s re-examining of their sense of self. Although Rick, like Nora, has to end a relationship, his decision is not made in order to find out who he really is, because he knows exactly who he is, at last. He devises a plan to help Laszlo and Ilsa escape together, even at great risk to his own life and at the cost of his personal happiness.
The ending of each text contributes to our understanding of the theme.
Room
When Jack and Ma are reunited after her overdose and subsequent stay in hospital, they both learn that they need one another a little less than they did when they first escaped from Room, and that is a good thing. The novel shows that in order for people to have a clear sense of their identity, they need to pull apart a little. Jack, during his time with Grandma, has learned that he is capable of living without Ma, and she is coming to terms with her adult self in the world outside Room. The title of this last section of the book is ‘Living’ and both Jack and Ma discover who they are and who they want to be. Both have had their development stunted by their captivity and must now pull away form their reliance on each other in order to be strong, independent individuals with a clear sense of self. Ma is not the same person she was when she went into Room and is concerned that she has become reclusive and content with Jack’s company only. However, Dr Clay and Noreen tell her, she ‘had to change to survive’ and ‘wouldn’t have stayed the same’ even if she hadn’t been imprisoned. Because Room was the place which Jack’s identity was formed and Ma experienced life-changing events, the visit to their former prison at the very end of the book is a significant moment for both. Ma sees Room from the outside in daylight, and although she is distressed, she rises to the occasion because she knows Jack needs this experience. Jack realises that he can let go of his former emotional attachment to Room. They leave, as free as they can be in body and spirit, and ready to move on with the next chapter of self-discovery.
A Doll’s House
The ending of ADH also shows us that it is essential to stand alone and not to shape an identity around another person. Nora learns, over the course of the play, that a person who is not true to themselves will never be truly valued. This is a more negative view of identity than that in Room because Ma and Jack love one another dearly at every stage, even if they have not yet become all they could be.
Since her early childhood, Nora has been the person others wanted her to be but has never been loved for herself as a result. She tells Torvald that when she lived with her father, he ‘told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it’. Nora brought this same approach to her marriage and now sees she has ‘made nothing’ of her life and has never been happy. Despite creating a persona that she believes will meet the needs and expectations of her husband, Nora is betrayed when Torvald turns on her in fury on discovering that she is being blackmailed because of a secret loan she took out in order to save him from ill health. The realisation rocks Nora’s sense of self and, even though Torvald forgives her on learning that Krogstad has withdrawn his threat of blackmail, Nora decides to leave the man she now views as a stranger. Like Ma and Jack, Nora has been living a restricted life, albeit metaphorical in her case. Still, the result had been similar; Nora has been unable to develop to her full potential. At the end of the text she realises that she can no longer love her husband, as he has shown that he puts himself first and foremost and loves her only when she conforms to his idea of what a perfect wife should be. As in Room, there is some uncertainty about the future. We don’t know how successful Nora will be in her quest to stand on her own two feet and establish an identity separate from that of her husband, but her spirited denunciation of Torvald’s treatment of her gives us hope. Our final sight of Nora is as she walks out the door of the Helmer home, leaving behind her husband and children. Although this is a heart-wrenching decision, it is essential id Nora is to have a chance of living life on her own terms. Nora admits that she does not know exactly what she is going to do when she leaves Torvald, but she is ready to face that challenge, nonetheless. As the door closes behind her, we feel that for the first time, Nora, like Jack and Ma, has the chance of a meaningful, fulfilling life and a better future. Sadly, Nora had to leave her family in order to find herself, while Jack and Ma continue their voyage of self-discovery together.
Casablanca
As in the other two texts, it takes a degree of separation for Rick to fully come to terms with who he is meant to be. Like Ma and Nora, Rick has allowed his sense of self to be too closely ties to another person. Ilsa’s apparent rejection wounds Rick so deeply that he adopts a bitter, cynical façade to hide his pain. Until Ilsa arrives in Casablanca and explains matters, Rick has no idea why she abandoned him in Paris and his sense of self is dealt a huge blow when he thinks that the woman he loves does not care for him. However, he eventually comes to see that Ilsa loves him still and that he has a difficult choice to make. The difference between Rick and the characters in the other texts is that Rick’s identity is intertwined with the American position during the Second World War. Therefore, his decision at the end of the film is not just personal, but also represents the American shift from isolationism to solidarity with the Allied cause.
At the end of the film, Rich embraces his heroic side and merges his political and romantic identities. He aloows Ilsa to leave with another man because the war effort is more important than any individual. In some of the most famous lines from the film, Rick tells Ilsa, ‘I’ve got a job to do, too. Where I’m going, you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do, you can’t be any part of’. Rick claims that he is ‘no good at being noble’ but his actions prove otherwise.
In all three texts, the characters have to make sacrifices if they are to be the best possible versions of themselves and be content with their sense of self. Jack and Ma are luckier than Nora and Rick in the sense that they can continue to develop their identity while remaining close. Both Rick and Nora have to part with loved ones if they are to be true to themselves. Nora leaves her children and Rick says goodbye to the woman he loves. He knows that he must put the greater good before his personal needs if he is to do what is right and be the best version of himself. Rick explains this to Ilsa in their moving goodbye scene: ‘I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world’. In all three texts what happens next is far from clear. Jack and Ma have a long road ahead and will surely struggle in their quest to find a clear identity in the new and strange world in which they find themselves. Nora is facing the unknown: a single woman without the support of family or financial support. Rick too heads into the unknown, and symbolically walks off into the Second World War equivalent of a sunset – a foggy airport - with an uncertain but surely more personally and politically fulfilling future ahead. The one thing all the principal characters share is that facing reality and standing on your own two feet is an essential part of establishing a strong sense of identity
The theme of identity is presented differently in each text.
Room
Room presents us with an original but disturbing view of the theme of identity. It shows us how difficult it is develop an identity without being part of the wider community. Jack grows up and forms his sense of self in an entirely artificial environment until he is five years of age. He believes the tiny world in which he lives is the real world and everything else is ‘outside’. Emma Donoghue explores what it is that makes us who we are and shapes our sense of self. Ma and Jack’s identities are intertwined. Everyone needs a sense of purpose to give their life meaning, and Jack’s birth – albeit in horrific circumstances – provides that for Ma. In the five years since Jack’s arrival, Ma has shaped her identity around being the best mother to him that she can be, under the circumstances. She tells Jack that before he was born, she sunk in abject misery and cried until she ‘didn’t have any tears left’. Later in the novel, Ma explains to a television interviewer that Jack was everything to her during her captivity and that when he was born, she felt alive again because she mattered to someone. We never learn Ma’s real name because that is all she is to Jack for a long time, his mother. That she might have another identity and be someone’s daughter, sister or friend is shocking to him when he and Ma eventually escape, and Ma too struggles to regain a sense of herself and her place in the world. Jack is equally shocked to discover that he is not the centre of a small universe but just one among many. However, he is at least young enough to learn and to develop a sense of self that is not connected to Room and his overly-dependent relationship with Ma. Still, his journey of self-discovery is far from straightforward. Jack may be adaptable, but he has been damaged by his time in Room and is far behind a typical five year old in many ways. Now Jack has to discover not only who he is but also learn to recognise that others are different to him, physically and emotionally.
A Doll’s House
In ADH, the situation is far less restrictive than that in Room, but Nora is also prevented from realising her full potential. In her case, it is a decision to appear as obliging and pleasing as she can that ultimately leads Nora to see that she has been living a lie. Ibsen initially presents us with a far more pleasant and seemingly happy domestic situation than that in Room. Nora, it appears, is happily married and the mother of three children. However, this is merely a façade and while her life is much easier than Ma and Jack’s it is also restrictive. Torvald is nothing as abusive as Old Nick, but he is equally convinced that he should be in absolute control. He wants to be in charge of everything in the Helmer household, from the way money is spent to Nora’s indulging her sweet tooth. Helmer’s use of the word ‘my’ when referring to his wife – ‘my little skylark’ and ‘my little squirrel’ shows that he believes Nora is his to manipulate and that she should not have an identity of her own. While Emma Donoghue shows us a blatantly cruel and obviously appalling setting in which her characters must struggle to find a sense of self, Ibsen is more subversive. He presents us with a seemingly idyllic situation but gradually reveals how damaging coercive control can be, particularly when it is disguised as loving care. Torvald treats Nora like an errant child and expects her to obey his dictates and seek his approval and permission for her every action, all the while supressing her individuality and independent identity. How we view this presentation of the theme depends on our attitude. At the time the play was written, audiences would have been inclined to believe that Torvald, the man of the house, was in the right. Indeed, such was the fuss when the play was released that a German theatre company changed the ending to have Nora remain with Torvald. Ibsen was shocked and disgusted when he learned of this amendment to the most important and significant moment in the text, calling it ‘a barbaric outrage’. The whole point of the play was to show how a seemingly perfect scenario could nevertheless restrict a person’s ability to find and express their true sense of self.
Casablanca
The presentation of the theme is very different in Casablanca than in the other two texts because the film presents us with a political as well as a personal message. Rick many seem callous when we first see him, but his identity is inextricable linked to the American attitude towards the Second World War. In the early part of the film, he represents the American isolationist approach. Having suffered heavy losses in the Frist World War, Americans were understandably reluctant to intervene in European affairs again. Therefore, Rick will not take a side when Ugarte is arrested and he repeatedly states his refusal to involve himself in the troubles of others. Renault calls Rick’s attitude a ‘wise foreign policy’ and assures Strasser that Rick is ‘completely neutral about everything’.
Rick’s situation is nothing like as restrictive as that endured by the characters in Room or ADH. Certainly, he has to preserve a façade of detachment and neutrality in order to evade unwelcome attention from the authorities in Casablanca, but he is not personally affected by those in authority, unlike the characters in the novel and the play. In order to show the shift from American isolationism to siding with the Allied cause, Rick has to have a change of heart. This switch from neutral to anti-Nazi is presented through Rick’s love for Ilsa Lund and his eventual rekindling of a moral code after his reunion with her. Through this meeting, we also learn that Rick has an identity beyond that of a representative of the American stance early in the war. The arrival of Ilsa Lund and Victor Lazslo in Casablanca shatters Rick’s composure and his carefully crafted identitiy as a hardened cynic who has little interest in the affairs of others. Through a flashback, we learn that Rick’s identity was not always that of a cynical, detached observer. He was, and is, more than a mere symbol of a political standpoint. When in Paris with Ilsa, he was far more carefree and much happier: a true romantic hero. However, when Ilsa abandoned him, everything changed for Rick and he internalised his pain, becoming reserved and seeminly unreachable. While Rick’s situation may seem on the surface more restrictive than Nora’s and almost as dangerous as Ma and Jack’s, he has more freedom than any of them and, therefore, a greater chance of realising and expressing his true identity. This is clearly shown at the end of the film when Rick embraces his political side and sacrifices his love affair with Ilsa for the greater good. Like Nora, Rick walks away from a serious relationship at the end of the text, but unlike Nora, Rick does so because he knows who he is. Nora has yet to discover that.