Identity

                                              Identity
      
In the poem "Looking thru Those Eyeholes", I think the author is trying express the view that
one's identity is a thing that will not change, it is one's origin, it is the "reality". In this poem, the young artist left his village at very early age, and he finally find his identity at his village within his culture rather than in the big world he had been to in the past.

I can understand the process of trying to find one's identity. Just as I learnt in class, identity is consist of many aspect. For example, I am a Chinese, so my identity is not just about that I have black hair and yellow skin. Identity is more about the value of one society, how people of one race think in terms of different issues in the world. For example, in China, we believe that lovers are organised by one god because we have this ancient myth about one god living in the moon who beings girls and boys together to be lovers. There is a social context behind our ways of thinking.I am sure the author of this poem also has his culture, and has a context behind his ways of thinking. It is through these thinkings, people form their identity. Therefore if one day I want to define my self properly, I will go to seek myself in my Chinese culture, not the New Zealand culture. Just as this artist in the poem, the author make his find his identity at his village.

Family is an important notion in the sense of identity, family is a place that an identity is passed on. So in this funeral setting in the poem, the identity has been passed from the dead father to the young artist. The mask made of half of the father's skull is a metaphor that the artist finds his own identity and take his identity with him in his life.