Identification of “Oneself” in “the Other” in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Novel “Everything Is Illuminated”

Abstract

The article investigates the problem of Ukrainian national identity by comparing the two cultures in the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer “Everything Is Illuminated”. An important conceptual role in revealing the question of identity is represented by a notion of “the Other”, which was introduced by Mikhail Bakhtin. The problem under study is disclosed in the novel through the Ukrainian character who seeks self-realization and gets on the path of self-cognition, posing a question of who am “I” and the relationship between “Me” and “the Other”. The writer deliberately created a discourse of the meeting-knowledge of “the Other” by representatives of two different cultures in conditions which are unfamiliar to them. Through the eyes of “the Other” the writer shows how the world sees Ukrainians and how Ukrainians see themselves and others. However, crafting the image of a Ukrainian, the author withdrew from the model of stereotyped representation of “the Other”, generating the idea of the necessity of cognition. Along with the change in the standard idea of Americans, Ukrainian Alex no longer desires to follow their behaviour, appearance and thinking. Instead, there appears real Alex – a curious, thoughtful young man who is on the path of self-cognition. Thus, the substitution of traditional values and notions for the instrumental-individualistic global morality of today has prevented the full development of the personality of the protagonist and his self-identification until the moment of his meeting with “the Other”. The image of Alex in the novel by the American writer reflects the evolution and development of the character’s personality, who undergoes personal and national identification in the dialogue with “the Other”, and thus changes his ideological paradigm. The author puts forward the concept of realizing human needs in preserving one’s identity in front of the global threat of mental, cultural and national depersonalization. The presence of “the Other” in the work under consideration has created conditions for the dialogue between different national cultures, in which Ukrainian self-identification of the character became possible through cognition and debunking stereotypes of peoples about each other.