A Cultural Reading of a Selected Novel (The Farming of Bones) of Edwidge Danticat in the Light of Stuart Hall’s Theory of Identity

The present study is undertaken to apply Stuart Hall’s theory of identity to Edwidge Danticat’s novel The Farming of Bones (1998) within a cultural reading. It specifically draws on the concept of ‘identity as becoming’ which will be traced in this novel’s black female protagonist, Amabelle Desir who experiences various painful adventures that are essential in her identity formation. Various manifestations of social, historical and racial aspects that play vital role in the construction of this young women’s identity will be discussed in the light of Hall’s critical perspective. The distinction between ‘identity as being’ and ‘identity as becoming’ depicted by Danticat is of utmost importance which seems in line with Hall’s definition of these two kinds of identity; however, it later turns to a more profound issue since Amabelle is in a permanent quest for her identity. In this way, a cultural reading of this outstanding novel reveals Danticat’s attempts to create unstable relations and interactions which put this character in a nonstop quest for a lost identity always oscillating between ‘identity as being’ and ‘identity as becoming’. Therefore the traditional view about identity according to which identity is regarded as a fixed and unchangeable entity is rejected throughout the sharp depictions illustrated by the novelist. Amabelle Desir as a diaspora subject is vulnerable to different elements that are imposed on her by time and her surroundings.