The Formation of Identity
"Our own bodies can move without the will conducting them" (Descartes 73). This philosophy is based upon the idea that the body is simply a machine used by its agent, the soul. Therefore, not only would the body be able to operate without the soul, as Rene Descartes suggests, assuming that will is enveloped in the idea of the soul, but the soul would also be able to survive outside the body, interchanging bodies and outside forms but still able to continue to exist or function in spite of losing its original (or perhaps just long term) agency. The narrator in "The Mask" certainly uses this idea in the formation of her identity. At first she barely even recognizes any connection between her body and her identity (or what she views as her identity). Then, as the two blend, she divides them again, morphing into a machine, much like the metaphor Descartes employs. The separation of the body and soul not only allows her body to function without her identity conducting it but also allows her identity to remove itself from its original body to that of a machine. The narrator's identity in "The Mask" is shown as a separate entity from that of her body, and therefore her identity does not exist as a resu
This contradicts both with her experience in the human body as well as with Descartes' definition of identity and soul. She at once is controlled by and controls her body, a machine. In Descartes' philosophy, a "reasonable soul...could not in any way be derived from the power of matter...it must be created expressly" (Descartes 162). In "The Mask", the narrator is recreated in the mechanical preying mantis. She acts and reacts upon getting instructions from the machine. The narrator insists that she still has an identity with "desire...[and]...destiny" (Lem 91), yet it is derived from the machine. This also differs from her previous experience with her human body. When she is in the human body, the narrator is able to think and react to what her body is doing. Her body is able to act on its own as well. This defined a large separation between the identity and the body, as Descartes expressed. If a body were to have no mind (and therefore no identity), "it would still move in all the same ways that it does [with a mind]" (Descartes 163). In this situation, the reader is lead to believe that the identity truly is separate from the body. Yet, then the narrator transforms into a mechanical being and then is controlled by that being and its destiny. This contradicts intensely as her identity becomes that of the machine. The machine and its destiny form the narrator's identity, not by her actions because even though she tries to change her destiny into what she desires, destiny wins and her lover is dead in the end. The narrator's separation of her identity from its body follows the thoughts of Descartes. Descartes' philosophy of the body is that it is like a machine, and because a machine has no soul, the body needs no soul to operate. He states "our own bodies can move without the will conducting them" (Descartes 73) like "machines which the industry of man can devise" (73). If a machine can run effectively, having all of the correct parts to perform basic functions, then the body, being simply comprised of organs and a network of veins and arteries, should be able to also function on its own. The difference between a machine and the human body is that machines "could never use words or other signs, composing them as we do to declare our thoughts to others" (74). Secondly, machines do "not act through knowledge" (74). In other words, machines are neither able to conceive of nor express thoughts or ideas. Humans can and Descartes suggests that this is because we have a spirit; an identity. lt of or
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1710
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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