Mississippi homes, which have been in their respec-
tive families for generations. Modernists entertained
new approaches to a newly emergent self, which,
although complex (as in Ezra Pound’s epic, and fit-
tingly, unfinished, Cantos), at least presupposed that
definable identity could exist. For the postmodern-
ists who followed, this was not necessarily a given.
The postmodern age, in which most would agree
we now live, takes nothing for granted, rejecting the
notion that an underlying absolute truth inevitably
exists. Tim O’Brien’s The thinGs they carried,
for instance, features a central character named Tim
O’Brien who is not necessarily the author (but is
not necessarily not the author, either); claims that
the most far-fetched tales are “real,” whereas those
that sound the most believable are pure invention;
includes stories of soldiers in Vietnam that have
nothing to do with war and accounts of men in
Minnesota that have everything to do with con-
flict; and even defies simple generic classification
as either a novel or a short-story collection. Toni
Morrison’s beLoved deconstructs the objectivity
of time, agency, and place. Burgeoning magical real-
ism, as found in Gabriel García Márquez’s one
hundred years oF soLitude routinely presents
seemingly supernatural events as quotidian, based on
the idea that assumption—of fixity, of consistency, of
identity—is ultimately quite dangerous.
Attempting to capture something as ambiguous
as identity via a literary medium is truly an exercise
in frustration, for as words are committed to paper,
and therefore rendered static, identity has consis-
tently proven dynamic. Authors continually attempt
to pin down the moment, to speak a word for the
present; hence, as history unfolds and we continue
to evolve as a species, works change over time—not
only in the styles employed in their composition
but also in the manner by which we approach them.
That is, while a text’s words may never change, we
do, and hence the interaction between text and
reader is, like our identities, ever-evolving. Tomor-
row, a breakthrough development in space explora-
tion or biomedicine may change how we interpret
a novel finished yesterday, thereby altering our
estimation of just who we are and what our place or
our role—our identity—is. Thus, as long as works of
literature and humankind coexist, they will continu-
ally seek new ways to define themselves—and each
other.
See also Alvarez, Julia: how the García
GirLs Lost their accents; Angelou, Maya: i
know why the caGed bird sinGs; Aristophanes:
FroGs, the; Bellow, Saul: adventures oF auGie
March, the; Bradford, William: oF pLyMouth
pLantation; Cisneros, Sandra: house on ManGo
street, the; DuBois, W. E. B.: souLs oF bLack
FoLk, the; Eliot, T. S.: “Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock, The”; Ellison, Ralph: invisibLe Man;
Equiano, Olaudah: interestinG narrative oF
the LiFe oF oLaudah equiano; Erdrich, Lou-
ise: binGo paLace, the; Grass Günter: tin
druM, the; Ibsen, Henrik: doLL’s house, the;
Kesey, Ken: one FLew over the cuckoo’s nest;
Kincaid, Jamaica: annie John; Kingston, Max-
ine Hong: tripMaster Monkey: his Fake book;
Kozinski, Jerzy: painted bird, the; Kundera,
Milan: unbearabLe LiGhtness oF beinG, the;
Lessing, Doris: GoLden notebook, the; Lon-
don, Jack: caLL oF the wiLd, the; white FanG;
Mistry, Rohinton: Fine baLance, a; Moma-
day, N. Scott: house Made oF dawn; way to
rainy Mountain, the; Morrison, Toni: bLuest
eye, the; Pirandello, Luigi: six characters in
search oF an author; Poe, Edgar Allan: “Fall
of the House of Usher, The”; Potok, Chaim:
chosen, the; Roth, Philip: aMerican pastoraL;
Rowlandson, Mary: narrative oF the captiv-
ity and restoration oF Mrs. Mary rowLandson;
Rushdie, Salman: MidniGht’s chiLdren; Shake-
speare, William: kinG Lear; Stevenson, Robert
Louis: stranGe case oF dr. JekyLL and Mr. hyde,
the, and treasure isLand; Wiesel, Elie: niGht;
Wilde, Oscar: picture oF dorian Gray, the.
David Visserillness
In her well-known 1978 book Illness as Metaphor,
Susan Sontag says, “Everyone who is born holds
dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in
the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to
use only the good passport, sooner or later each of
us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves
as citizens of that other place” (3). Illness affects all
human beings in some way, whether it is a simpleillness 55