The Mind Of A Thief Identity Analysis

The search for an identity - a sense of self- is a life-long journey and a great dilemma. It is an undeniable fact that our identities are formed by where we are – whether it be the physical location or a passage in time. The child of the 21st century will be very different to that of the 18th or 19th century. The same can be said about our physical location- it is impossible to compare the identities of a child growing up in a privileged western society to that of the Middle East or Africa. However, the phenomenon of identity is not only created by time or place, rather by a variety of factors such as family, race, religion, choice and experience.

The rules and expectations created by society, family, race or religion, all provide us with
Through the endeavour to find her aboriginal identity, Miller comes to the conclusion that who we are, our identity, is an illusion – a construct – for which to have substance, it must be experienced as something given, not just made up of the choices we make to create our way of life. However, Miller’s central thesis, that identity could be learned or passed on through DNA is not only counterintuitive, but also positively wrong. Although science would hypothesis that an abandoned child becomes a ‘wolf’ or ‘wild thing’ – the same cannot be said of adults. Miller in alluding to experience, is proposing that we are more of a trans-generational species than a collection of individuals, whose identities have been formed by choice and experience. It is specious to advocate that Miller is being delusional or dishonest in her proposition – Miller needs to be afforded the same intellectual property rights as the rest of us, her truth is her truth, our truth is our truth. Nevertheless, as we passage on the continuum that is our life-long search of an identity and belonging, our identities are formed by our choices and experiences. We are all individuals and our identities are created in part by exposure to different circumstances, whether it be choices and experience, or family, race and religion. We are born alone, we die alone, and it is up to us to negotiate our inner truths and choose what forms our