And since everyone knows me as "the trauma kid", it seemed reasonable for me to start addressing a particular factor in the construction of identity related to this field of study (trying, then again, not to go around the bushes too much), and that is the subject of death in this ongoing negotiation of identity.
Enoch Hale, a puritan pater familias, writes to his son Nathan to provide an account of the state of the affairs of the everyday, but it seems impossible for him not to deviate and turn daily matters into a theological question, even when it comes to the death of one of his grandchildren. It is startling to notice the lack of words such as loss, grief, pain in Enoch Hale's response to such a loss. His main concern seems to be the obscurity of the subject on its treatment in the bible. It seems that a state of grief or mourning is hindered because of the lack of information on the subject present on the sacred document. Furthermore, at some point in the letter of Jan. 26, 1826, it seems that Hale glorifies the death of the child, resembling more the ancient ideal of sacrifices than how we understand such losses nowadays. On his approach to the death of his grandchild, Enoch Hale provides us with an essential light on the subject of his identity, and that is that this seems to be primarly constructed upon his relationship to God.
On the other hand, Nathan Hale does not seem to be that much different, as he also adresses the situation as the will of a merciful God. It is now when Durkheim's study comes into play and we see in Nathan a recieved manner of reaction. However, different from his father, Nathan does not seem to have a grasp of himself merely based on his relationship with God, but as a working man who produces a consumable good (maps), he seems to have a different sense of materiality, in the broadest sense of the word. With this, I point out to the moment of reflection he has about the death of her daughter, Susan. When accounting the event, Nathan introduces terms such as measuring, loss, gift, taken away. Nonetheless, his notion of a hereafter to which aspire is stronger and becomes the center of his reflection, understanding that stage which comes after life as a space of reunion, enhancing the formation which he received by his father, which conforms to his religion.
Nathan, as a child raised by a puritan family, seems to have no choice but that, to conform. I wonder what would have been the outcome of his relation to the community or his own family if he, instead of conforming, had blamed or questioned God for taken away four of his kids. It is also obscure for me if there exists a notion of mourning to grasp for them, that is to say, in Freud's words, a space for working through situations like the dead of the loved ones.
Nevertheless, it is known by now that religion, in Durkheim's terms, constitutes a social fact, so, this attitude towards death seems to be out of the question for puritans, but not for me. The fact that the next letter after the death of Nathan's daughter accounts for such a frivolous topic as the family vacations enhances this doubt about the space for mourning and meassuring loss, and moreover, poses the question if such an event is actually capable to destabilize such a fixed conception of identity.
