Real selves and adopted personas: performance of self in Kamila Shamsie’s home fire.

Abstract

This research offers an exemplification of Erving Goffman’s theory Presentation of Self and analysis of identity crisis in characters of Home Fire (2017). This research describes the reality of modern society and problem of identity, through the novel of Kamila Shamsie. Characters are struggling in this materialistic world for their identity and it is discussed how they adopt different personas for their self-presentations before the audience, changing situation to situation and audience to audience. This research deals with their process of persona adoption and characters fight to carve their real selves to present their perfect selves on the stage where they have to please the audience present, forgetting and hiding their real selves in the adopted masks.