The Individual Self

Paper Summary:

The paper compares Walcott's play "Dream on Monkey Mountain" to Mauss's work "A Category of the Human Mind: the Notion of Person; the Notion of Self" and notes the fundamental differences between these two types of literary works. The paper goes on to show, however, how the two writers also share similar ideas and analytical approaches towards the integration of the individual self in a certain environment.

From the Paper:

"In Walcott's play, Makak represents an old man who has lived on Monkey Mountain for most of his life. In a dream, the quest of going back to Africa, his place of descent, is revealed and he attempts, in a dreamlike manner, to proceed on his journey. Ending up in jail and escaping, his most precious purpose now is to go back to Monkey Mountain, where he has lived for most of his adult life.
"His quest towards rediscovering his origins is natural for an immigrant, but Walcott presents all this in a surrealistic manner that involves masquerades and dances, as well as a dreamlike approach to the realities of self identity and self integration in the society of which he is part of. The self here is not only a social self, but also an isolated one, an individual who does not succeed in his attempt to integrate and needs to retrace his steps to the new country."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Mauss, Marcel, 'A category of the human mind: the notion of person; the notion of self'.The category of the person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History, ed. Michael Carrithers, Steven Collins, Steven Lukes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)
• Allen, N.J., 'The category of the person: a reading of Mauss' last essay', The category of the person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History, ed. Michael Carrithers, Steven Collins, Steven Lukes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)
• Dumont, Louis, Essays on Individualism: Modern Ideology in Anthropological Perspective, (London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992)
• Walcott, Derek. Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays. Farrar Straus Giroux (Jun 1970)

More papers on The Individual Self:

• Analytical Essay # 1061 : "Carl G. Jung's "The Undiscovered Self"
• Analytical Essay # 132424 : "Concepts of the Individual in Cultural Anthropology"
• Analytical Essay # 139787 : "Emerson and Thoreau and the Individual"

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