Identity as a dialectic of sameness and selfhood - the peculiarities of forming a narrative identity in the texts of Georgian female authors

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Salome Pataridze

Abstract

The experience of human time is articulated narratively, on the one hand, and the world shown in narrative works is always temporal, on the other. According to Paul Ricoeur, the idea of a story depends on the (re)configuration of its time experience. With this argument Ricoeur expresses a supposition on ​​the compatibility between the actual reality and the reality of a literary text - which he calls reference. Thus, the function of cognition and construction of extra-literary reality are attributed to literature. The category of gender is insignificant in the researcher's analysis, but its theoretical foundations include important issues that connect time and gender, since gender is also related to experience: the world of experience conveyed in the text offers an alternative model of the contemporary real world organization.


Narrative identity is perceived as unstable because it is formed by combining the historical and fictional dimensions of the narrative and, similar to a story, can be told in a new way. For this reason, narrative identity is presented as something that can be con-figured and re-figured. Therefore, revealing and analyzing the conditions and causes of changes in the fictional texts of Georgian female authors will enable us to identify and analyze the peculiarities of constructing narrative identity, as well as to reconstruct images of epochs. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to determine the role of time experiences in the interrelation between the fictional world of the text and the reality of life.


The theoretical framework of the research is the time existence of Paul Recoeur's concept of "Me, myself", for which the researcher uses the concepts of sameness and selfhood, which are dynamic components of identity, enabling the altered versions (variations) of self to be integrated into time. The concepts of sameness and selfhood represent two extremes of identity. Both aspects of personal identity reinforce the assumption that "Me, myself" " is unique and permanent over time. The texts of Ekaterine Gabashvili, Safo Mgeladze and Keti Nizharadze have been selected as objects of analysis. The analysis of the texts reveals the connection between the world constructed in the literary texts of women authors and time experiences, and the real (actual) world and how the processes taking place in the real world is reflected in the writings of women.

Published: Nov 14, 2022

Article Details

Section
Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Literature and Culture