LOSS OF IDENTITY IN DESAI'S INHERITANCE OF LOSS

Identity may be defined as the distinctive characteristic belonging to any given individual, or shared by all members of a particular social category or group. The formation of one's identity occurs through one's identifications with significant others (primarily with parents and other individuals during one"s biographical experiences, and also with 'groups' as they are perceived). These others may be benign such that one aspires to their characteristics, values and beliefs (a process of idealistic-identification), or malign when one wishes to dissociate from their characteristics (a process of defensive contra-identification Weinreich gives the definition “A person's identity is defined as the totality of one's self-construal, in which how one construes oneself in the present expresses the continuity between how one construes oneself as one was in the past and how one construes oneself as one aspires to be in the future” ; this allows for definitions of aspects of identity, such as: "One"s identity is defined as that part of the totality of one"s self-construal made up of those dimensions that express the continuity between one"s construal of past ancestry and one"s future aspirations in relation to ethnicity".