White Girl and identity

The story of White Girl shows how the identity can be changed and adapted. The girl, Leah, moves to her new house with the identity built around her family, and heavily influenced by their beliefs. In the beginning we can see how Leah is incredibly unhappy strives for change of this identity, though is unsure how to come about this change. As the story unfolds Leah’s identity develops and changes, a change influenced by the Muslim community she is surrounded by. Paul Ricoeur’s idea that the identity is built from the narratives of a person is represented by White Girl, as Leah’s identity is changing as her story unfolds and new narratives are built.

In the same way, White girl is representative of the ideas of Anthony Giddens and Michael Bakhtin, who propose that we create, maintain and revise our narratives over time. Our narratives are never static, and are always changing. It is these narratives that shape and mould our identities, so, as our narratives are always being revised and changed, as are our identities.

Ricoeur, Giddens and Bakhtin all suggest that identity is post-modernist. This relates back to Leah, as she is shaping her own identity, moving it away from the modernist identity that was initially formed for her by her parents. This shows that identity is not inherited; it is made by the individual.

White Girl presents youth modernist identity as broken off and disconnected, mainly from past modernist identities and the family identity. Leah is moving from her modernist identity, which her father is trying to push upon her, where identity is stable and fixed, and the identity that has been given to her becomes who she is. She is moving away from that concept and adopting the post-modernist concept of identity.