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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page paper which considers the concept of personal identity and how it manifests itself in these authors’ selected characters. Bibliography lists 6 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: TG15_TGhawmel.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
John Locke, personal identity is "an identity of consciousness through duration in time; the individual was in touch with his own continuing identity through memory of his past thoughts and
actions" (Realism and the Form of the Novel: Notes From Ian Watts The Rise of the Novel). David Hume launched into a philosophical attack on the concept of personal
identity in his work, A Treatise on Human Nature. He contended that the notion of an inner self was a manifestation conjured through sensory perceptions, and therefore, did not
exist in actual fact. Hume wrote, "When my perceptions are removd for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be
said not to exist" (252). Personal identity, in terms of how novel characterizations, developed in earnest during the nineteenth century, as evident in the popular Romantic literary tradition.
In the works of such authors as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, the personal identities of their characters are articulated through carefully-structured narratives and background information. They are also
reflected in their intimate observations about themselves, not unlike the interior monologues William Shakespeare used in his tragedies to illustrate the inner conflict of his characters. It is recommended that
the person who is writing about this topic consider that much of Nathaniel Hawthornes personal identity was forged in New Englands Puritan landscape. His family history consisted of Puritans
and Calvinists who had resided in New England for generations, and each ensuing generation seemed connected by a common moral thread. Nathaniel Hawthorne, like his ancestors, knew how society
dictated what acceptable external behavior was, but also understood that the human desires that existed within were frequently the source of conflict. He examined the demands of society in
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