Discourse and identity in Louis De Bernieres' Novel Birds Without Wings

The aim of this present thesis is to discuss the concept of identity in a discursive perspective in Louis De Bernieres' Birds Without Wings. Identity concept is studied on in six chapters to observe the construction and deconstruction processes of identity formation based on the related identity theories. In the first chapter the focus is on the individual identities in relation to the narrative technique applied in the novel. In the second chapter, social construction of identity, its reflections on society and social structures are discussed. The third chapter focuses on the reflections of religious identities on individual and social levels with reference to religious characters in the novel. Chapter four deals with dislocation of identities or exiled identities with reference to the event of exchange of populations of Turks and Greeks being one of the central themes in the novel. In the fifth chapter sexual identity is discussed under the concepts of gender and gender roles mostly on the social level with reference to inter-relationships and the last chapter took the concepts of disidentification and non-identity with reference to some isolated, marginalized selves as characters in the novel. As a study of identity focusing on the artificial shaping and reshaping of its structures and types in the postmodern novel Birds Without Wings written with a general attitude to make the existing multiplicities visible with the narrative technique employed by the author, identity concept, identity construction and deconstruction are aimed to be examined to discuss the awareness and effects of change, transformation, fluidity and instability of human identity in individual and social structures within a discursive frame. Key words: Identity, Discourse, Individual identity, Social identity, Religious identity, Gender identity, Exiled identity, Disidentification