by Aaron Smith

Created on: June 14, 2009

"And now all past humiliations became precious parts of my experience, and for the first time, leaning against that stone wall in the sweltering night, I began to accept my past and, as I accepted it, I felt memories welling up within me. It was as though I'd learned suddenly to look around corners; images of past humiliations flickered through my head and I saw that they were more than separate experiences. They were me; they defined me."

-Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison

In A World Without Substances or Essences, Richard Rorty rejects the Platonic idea that there is any essential truth to a particular object. He says instead, "There is nothing to be known about an object except what sentences are true of it" (Rorty 55). In the above passage from Invisible Man, Jack the Bear comes to a similar conclusion about his own identity. He does not, as it turns out, have an essential "him-ness"; his identity is neither more nor less than the sum of his experiences. In my copy of Invisible Man, I have not only underlined this passage, but also written "best passage in book" beside it in large, declarative letters, which I then put a box around and an asterisk above and below. The passage, in short, rings as true as can be to me - or it did when I read it, and it got me excited. Now, however, I have a problem: I could go around declaring that I, Aaron Smith, am the sum of my experiences, and that would be fine. The trouble is, what can I say about how others perceive me? What is my identity even to those who know me best? If one is not present as each of my experiences take place, their only access to my identity is what I tell them of my experiences. I am, to them, the sentences that are true of the sum of my experiences. But what an impossible statement that is! If I am a pathological liar, my "true" identity is not Aaron Smith, the first man in space (though I would probably claim as much); my identity is Aaron Smith, the lying asshole. The only "true" identity a person has is based on the sentences that others apply to them. Jack the Bear is not simply the person who "went there, saw that and did this," he is the person about whom "[so and so] said is the kind of guy who..." The trouble is that the many "so and sos" in the novel tell us next to nothing about him. We are left very little to call an identity.

When I was maniacally over-marking what I'll be referring to as "best passage in book", there was a good reason it rang so true to me, namely: it was

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