Identity In Faulkner's 'Everything I Never Told You'

This novel is a keen insight into the complexities of an American family, and mostly the importance of allowing yourself and others within your family to be ‘themselves’; to be the unique individual you were meant to be. The novel makes you understand the importance of being an individual within your family, and to support the other members unconditionally. It chronicles the history of each of the members, in particular the sixteen year old girl, Lydia. Even though you find out in the first sentence she is dead, the description of each family member is examined in relation to the others. Wondering from the start to nearly the finish of the novel if Lydia was murdered or committed suicide, the reader becomes aware of the fact that she had no identity of her own. In fact, she became a puppet and did what others expected of her and lost her identity. This theme of not letting your family members be their own person, or a unique individual, is at the very core of the book and leads to Lydia’s demise.

After Lydia’s mother leaves the family and decides to come back, Lydia decides that the best way to appease her parents and get her mom to stay is by becoming the person her mom thinks and wants her to be. …show more content…
The author conveys how damaging this can be from the first sentence to the last sentence in the book. It causes not just the unhappiness of the children, in this case Lydia, but of all the members of the family. To lose yourself, or your identity, in pursuit of someone’s acceptance, approval or love is a very unhealthy thing. In Lydia’s case it meant not only losing her sense of self, but of losing her life. Ng’s book is not only an eye-opener, it hits home the idea of letting each member in a family have their own individuality and loving them