Self-Identity: A Mixture of Common Characteristics Even though Oscar Wildes statement rebukes what todays society says about

self-identity, it helps reveal what is true and untrue about how we as people express ourselves. Wilde states that, Most people are other people,and that their lives are a mimicry, we do imitate other people to a certain extent, but our individuality can be expressed by impersonating many peoples traits. This is clearly expressed in the novel Old School by Tobias Wolff; the narrators insecurities such as his discomfort with his religious identity, his own delusions regarding his writings, and his lack of remorse or guilt, prove that though we are uncomfortable with ourselves, we will always try to set goals to change those characteristics about us that we do not like, even to the point of risking everything that we have worked for. The beginning of the novel infers that the narrator is not entirely comfortable with his religious identity, and does not want to be a part of it. He feels that there is a certain apartness in his Jewish peers, and tries to avoid that sense of being different especially by being profane. He expresses irreverence in many ways, comparing sacred rituals such as the laying of the hands and anointing of oil (Wolff 7) to meeting well-known authors. Further on, he shows a propensity of becoming tense on the topic of Judaism. For example, the narrator says about his roommate that he had caught on to his Jewishness, and did not want to touch so tender a nerve, I assumed in him because I suffered from it myself(72). Because this narrator is so uncomfortable with his identity, he assumes that everyone else who is Jewish feels the same way. It seems as if he wants to erase this part of him and replace it with something else. How often to we become self-conscious about having something different in our lives that we would like to be transient or even non-existent? Ev-

ery day we live to experience and see it on television, or in other media, because we are self-conscious about our selves; we try to mimic what is on the media and try to be other people. Summers Dance is also an example of how the narrator found himself in other works and mimicked it, which proves that the level of uniqueness we find in ourselves, can be seen somewhere else. Even though he found this story, and felt that it spoke to him or pertained to him, his plagiarism proved his insecurities. He drove himself to the point of risking his high school diploma, and scholarship to college for the satisfaction of finally expressing himself in a way he felt was appropriate. The story was his, but the writing was not, which is why he found it easy to submit it. He was willfully mendacious when he put his name on the paper, knowing it was not his. Even though it was not him, he wanted to change himself to be the author that wrote the story. Lying can place people on a pedestal that is hard to get off. Having the recognition, and meeting a famous author, can make someone completely enthusiastic even if you did not get there the honorably. The narrator even went AWOL across the river and mucked through freshly plowed fields (133) because of the alacrity he felt by winning. We can all see this as a part of our lives, even if the situation is not as serious as the narrators. After the narrators experience of getting caught, he seems to be in a state of delusion, and though he knows that he did not write Summers End, he has issues of accepting the reality that the story is not his. There are clear indications that his heart is still in the story, and that he believes in every bone in his body that this story was his, and only his, but the question lies in why he cheated. Knowing what the punishment of plagiarism was, and knowing the chances he was taking, he still took that risk. He was being what Wilde wrote, the other people and indicated it to everybody, especially the readers. Having that viewpoint is not new to what we know about plagiarism. Are our ideas really unique? Or are they built on different ideas that others have heeded

and studied? The narrator infers that personality is made up of building blocks of other peoples characteristics by trying to express himself through someone elses story. Being a part of a melting pot that mixes everybody's different characteristics makes us all unique to a certain extent. We all may have attributes in common, as well as differences that help us determine who we are. Old School helps prove this by the narrators reactions to his re-

ligious identity, his impetuous act of plagiarizing another persons story, as well as his impenitent reaction to getting caught. Understanding the narrators issues with searching for himself relates with how today, we try to express ourselves, or hide away behind someone elses depiction of our own truths.

Works cited Wolff, Tobias. Old School. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2004. N. pag. Print.