Identity plays a strong role in The Fifth Season through the characters’ interactions and inner turmoil, which serves to argue how the world can affect someone’s identity. Damaya’s identity change to Syenite then to Essun symbolizes her own growth throughout the novel. However, it also shows her dissatisfaction with herself and the world. The world fears Orogenes, and that fear causes society to oppress them, taking advantage of Orogenes and treating them as less than human. Alabaster tells Syen, “That we’re not human is just the lie they tell themselves so they don’t have to feel bad about how they treat us” (354). Syen grew up being taught constantly that she and other orogenes were monsters, so in this conversation she yearns to become human, even though she already is. This oppression causes the Orogenes to lose their identity and see themselves as monster, as evidenced through Syen. Syen wants to escape her Orogeny, so she hides it as Essun until her husband kills her son.
Syen is not the only character that faces a metamorphoses in the novel. Tonkee and Hoa are similar to Syen in that they too are suppressed by society because they are different. The reveal that Tonkee is transgender does not largely affect Essun or cause her to view Tonkee any differently. The entire trio - Essun, Hoa, and Tonkee - are the direct opposite of the society in The Fifth Season: they humanize each other and find value in their individual characters instead of their labels. They represent the hope of people accepting others and celebrating difference. Jemisin’s argument is the normalization of certain groups, such as African Americans and transgender people, through this allegory of the three characters.
There is a good bit of physical death in the novel but also the death of identity and past selves. This is summed up at the end of the prologue: “This is what you must remember: the ending of one story is just the beginning of another” (14). Damaya sheds her past life when she becomes Syen, and again when she becomes Essun. However, Jemisin’s style seems to argue that the three parts of Syen are essential parts of herself. All of the perspectives are in present tense, which signifies the fact that even though Syen has tried to break away from her past as Essun, Syen and Damaya are still very present in her life. Jemisin also utilizes style in the shift in perspective - Essun is in second perspective and Damaya and Syen are in third - which represents the present day and who Essun has become. It also effectively puts the reader in her perspective, making the events seem more relative despite the novel being in the sci-fi genre. Afterall, the themes of identity and self-actualization are not only felt by Orogenes, but also people in the real world. Jemisin’s allegory of the Orogenes to African Americans argues the importance of normalizing monsters and finding one’s identity despite the restraints of the world.
The manipulation of identity is a common theme throughout all of The Fifth Season. However, while the stills have manipulated the identities of other species in order to oppress them, the main character of the novel uses identity in a different way. You say that she changes her identity in order to break away from the past but I think she does it for another reason: survival. This is best shown when Essun is thinking about creating a new identity some time into her journey to find her daughter. She thinks “Right now you’re cold and weak, and that helps no one” (Jemisin 172). She doesn’t want to find a new identity in order to escape what's happened to her but rather because her current identity is of no use to her. I think that is one of the many ways that she is different from the other oregenes and other stills in the novel. Rather than allowing others to manipulate her identity to control her, she manipulates her own identity so she can control her self. Whether this means she’s and ambitious oregene in the Fulcrum or a powerful oregene in hiding, she always changes the ways others see her in order to best serve her own life.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Essun allows her identity to be changed by the world I think says something about the fluidity of identity but also the fact that we have control over our own identities. During her identity shifts Essun doesn’t just change her name and leave town. A lot of things about her change, to the point where it reads as three separate characters until you know that Essun, Syenite, and Damaya are all the same person. Her entire personality suffers a shift as well. Identity is not a static value, it has the ability to shift over time. The oppression that Essun experiences gives her cause to change her personality and name, but it’s her own choice to do so. When she’s looking for her daughter, Essun considers “try[ing] on the sleeves and slacks of a new personality” (172). This means it’s not even necessarily something that happens because of oppression, it’s a tactic that Essun uses to find her way out of difficult situations. The fact that Essun is the one who controls her own identity shifts, always the one to choose her new names and personalities, shows how in control she is of these shifts, which implies that the shifts are internal, and while they may be prompted by external forces, the changes in identity that Essun undergoes are not governed by anything other than her own choices.
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