Self-Identity In The History Of Love

In the History of Love, Leopold Gursky’s self-identity is lost and the cause of his sense of non-existence is due to all of the losses he has encountered in his life and with every loss he becomes less sure of his existence, resulting in his invisibility in the world. Krauss uses the motif of invisibility and self-identity to show how one can become invisible if he/she loses what makes them who they are, causing them to lose sense of themselves and their self-identities altogether, resulting in a sense of invisibility as he/she is non-existent as they have lost themselves. Krauss uses Leo to display her idea of invisibility and self-identity in the book. Leo’s invisibility and lack of self-identity is caused by the losses in his life consisting of, his love, his family, his writing, and most importantly, his son. …show more content…
Leo watches his son grow up from afar throughout his entire life due to how he was never able to be a part of his son’s life directly so he admired him from a distance. “I watched him tie his shoe from across the street.” This shows how desperate Leo is to fill this missing puzzle piece of himself that he has been longing for his entire life and has been holding him back from fully existing in this world as Isaac can be seen as the most important piece in Leo’s life. Leo tries his best to fill this emptiness inside of him, caused by his non-existent relationship with his son, doing different things consisting of his son. “It was a photo of Isaac. I collect all his clippings, if there was a fan club I’d be the president.” Here Leo is shown being obsessive towards his son as he has all pictures of Isaac and he states if there were a fan club, he would be the president as he was his biggest fan and admirer. This shows, Leo, again attempting to fill in the missing pieces of emotions pertaining to his son, in his life, that he has missed out on and has been longing for. When Isaac dies, Leo loses another piece of himself, he states “I knew that the way