Assignment 3.2: Personal Identity
3. Internal and External Identity
Internal and external identity
Your internal identity refers to your ideal image of who you are and who you want to be. It's also the identity you want to portray to the outer world. This identity comes about as you journey through life and use your past experiences and their emotional facets as guideposts for evaluating yourself, and therefore constructing your internal identity.
Compare this to external identity. External identity refers to how other individuals interpret who you are and what your public image is as a consequence of what you do, say, and how you look. Your external identity comes about as others talk about you, judge you, and treat you.
As such, in literature, memorable characters are ones that we as readers can relate to. The more we know about their background, their personality traits and their looks, the better we can identify and understand their journey.
Review indirect and direct characterization on the next page.