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Creating Personal Identities

 

            In Leslie Bell's "Selections from Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom," she explores the concept of individual identity. She writes about a couple of individuals who are dealing with questions of control over the construction of their personal identity as they try to relate their personal desires to outside social forces. In Maggie Nelson's "Great to Watch" she writes about the connection between image flow and mediated images with the integration of human relationships. She talks about the issues of autonomy and control in her essay and provides solutions for them. Finally in Susan Faludi's "The Naked Citadel" she explores the cultural norms at the school which shapes their student experiences. She focuses on the young cadets being stripped off their identity and being molded into the Citadel's definition of masculinity. In today's world, every individual has their own beliefs and each person has their own personality. The beliefs and the personality of an individual is reflected on their personal identity. Bell gives examples of Jayanthi and Alicia who stand against their cultural norms to follow their personal desires of having the identity they choose to have. This is something that the cadets at the Citadel could not have, as they were forced to conform to the beliefs and norms at the school. Nelson expresses a great deal of problems that are created because of the freedom of image flow. The fact that there is so much freedom in this world acts as an instigator to the act of binary thinking which serves as a process to construct an identity. Bell's examples of Jayanthi and Alicia reflects on their control over constructing their identity over time which is something the cadets at the Citadel failed to do as they were restricted by the boundaries set from the image of the school and were scared to be rebellious against the meaning of such image flow.


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