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Abstract:

A vast number of works by philosophers, sociologists and psychologists disclose the problem of identity, which is extremely important in the modern world. Much less often the phenomenon of identity becomes the subject of consideration in literary criticism and linguistics. An attempt to fill in this gap is presented in the proposed paper. The work is based on the material of the novel “The Hunger Angel” by Nobel Prize winner Herta Müller. The paper examines various situations from the life of the main character, which allows us to analyze his identity. The work shows that the character’s identity is formed by contrast, changing throughout the novel. Growing up in his hometown in Romania, the protagonist sees his identity through belonging to the German nation in contrast with the Romanian nation and with the Nazi ideas of his parents. The young man does not consider himself a representative of the “superior race”. In the labor camp in the Donetsk region, hard work and malnutrition put the need for survival far ahead of any self-identification; spiritual identity is replaced by the image of oneself as a mere biological being in constant fight with hunger. Contact with the Russian identity leads the protagonist to some understanding of the universal human values. Upon returning from the camp, the main character feels his inner emptiness, the meaningless of his existence, lives with the memories of the past, losing his true identity. In contrast to published works, containing the analyses of the novel, this paper explains self-identification of the protagonist within the framework of Karl Jaspers’ existentialist philosophy, interpreting the meaning of human life in connection with the awareness of one’s place in the historical process. The representation of the main character’s identity occurs indirectly: nomi- nations, symbolizing in his mind a certain type of identity, are selected from the context of the situational description. The analysis shows that the artistic rep- resentation of the identity phenomenon in a certain way expands its boundaries.