In the story "Everything That Rises Must Converge" one main theme is that of identity. In this story we meet Julian, who is a college graduate still living at home with his mom, selling typewriters and who does not believe that he will amount to anything. In this story it seems like Julian is determined to be not like his mother but as the reader we can see how much he is actually like his mother. His story is a quest for identity. Julian's mother, we learn, is a little overweight, a little racist, and from her perspective - is sure of who she is. It seems, though, that Julian's mother's identity is an insecure identity. Julian's mother prefers to join her identity to her past. Though Julian's mother claims to be so sure of her identity there are clues within this story hinting that this is not so true. At the end of the story it's almost as if there is a complete loss of identity - as both Julian and his mother look at each other and recognize nothing.

Julian's quest for identity seems mostly related to identifying himself independent of his mother. Julian is so set on doing this that he ends up becoming actually more like her than not like her. One of the first

Another example we see of Julian attempting to identify himself as being so different from his mother is when he mentions, that "in spite of growing up dominated by a small mind, he had ended up with a large mind, in spite of all her foolish views he was free of prejudice and unafraid to face facts." This is an ironic statement that he makes. Though Julian is not outwardly prejudiced, by the slighting comments and gestures that he makes, the story reveals that Julian is in his own way prejudiced against African Americans. And though he states that he is unafraid to face facts, he is in fact completely unable to face the fact that he is much dominated by his mother and is as well like his mother. A different example of Julian's denied similarity to his mother is in the pleasure that they both find in thinking about the old house. When Julian's mother decides that she would rather talk about something more pleasant (than talking about African Americans) she brings up her childhood memories of her grandpa's house. It is obvious that these are pleasant memories for her. Similarly this house also brings pleasure to Julian. For Julian thinking about the old house is a pleasant escape. The house is something that often appears in his dreams and it is also what he escapes to, in his thoughts, while sitting on the bus. Though it is more obvious that Julian is on a quest to distinguish his own identity it is less obvious the discrepancies that exist within Julian's mother's identity.

It is very clear in this story that Julian's mother is determined that she knows who she is. Repeatedly, throughout the story, Julian's mother makes statements either proclaiming that she knows who she is or referring in general to the importance of knowing who you are. It seems though that Julian's mother's identity might not be so secure as she thinks it is. Some hints of this lie in how she so much joins her identity to her past and in how she has to distinguish her identity through her looks.

Another way that we see Julian's mother's insecurity in her identity is through her need to be noticed by what she wears - by her looks. It does not seem like the hat that she buys is so much bought because she likes the st

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Approximate Word count = 1488
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)