In this paper, I will explore the complexities in identity and its effects on the characters in Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso Sea, J.M. Coetzees Disgrace and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies Purple Hibiscus using the lens of postcolonial approach. The concept of identity is complex and different meanings of it are evident to offer good starting points for a research of the concept of identity. Here is the most relevant entry for identity in the Oxford English Dictionary, the fact of being who or what a person or thing is or the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity (Oxford English Dictionary, p 705). In addition to this, Beller and Leerssen also claims that, Identity becomes to mean being identifiable, and is closely linked to the idea of permanence through time something remaining identical to itself from moment to moment (Beller and Leerssen, p 3) They reveal the other side of identity by referring to what they call the synchronic meaning of the concept of identity. From this view it can be said that this sense of self representing ones autobiographical narrative with the ever-changing actions and reactions experienced in the real life. The process of rewriting the story of somebodys life enables the person to reinterpret past experience and is essential for acting as a person with a sense of self in the present and the future.
The way one identifies them to another does influence how others identify them. In terms of postcolonialism, displacement has heavily influenced the identities of the diasporic people mainly Caribbean and Africans. Postcolonialism as a term that retains a high complexity from its diverse nature. Displacement and diaspora offer a significant example of the aftermath of colonialism. The complexity of identity formation of the postcolonial diaspora invites a close examination. It is hardly doubtful the role of colonial experience in the formation of the identity of the once-colonized. The colonial caused a rupture in the self-identification of the once-colonized, eradicated and denigrated their pre-colonial identities, and rendered them ever-struggling for their new identities. The debate about the identity of the colonized, therefore, is caught between a displaced stand which claims that the identity of the diaspora has never been the same for every colonized victims. Using the postcolonial theory throughout the essay will enable to study the process by which colonialism has been a shaping factor of identity complexities in the selected characters in three different novels respectively. The three works are examined comparatively to emphasize the displacement and the complexity of identities that results from colonialism in Caribbean Island and Africa.