Problematic Identity Reconstruction

In Nabokov’s novel Pnin,the author depicts a vivid representative of Russian émigrés in America in the 1940 s and 1950 s.Under the guidance of social identity theory,this thesis explores the eponymous protagonist’s social identity process and the relevant identity anxiety after he enters America,and provides a relatively comprehensive demonstration of his problematic social identity reconstruction.Social identity theory was first put forward by Tajfel and Turner in the late 1970 s and has undertaken a burgeoning development since the mid-1980 s.It maintains that members in a social group share the same social identity and compete with outgroups to win a positive distinctiveness and they will choose different strategies to ensure that distinctiveness within different social contexts.As to an individual with membership of a certain group,his prestige in the society is closely related to the evaluation of the group he belongs;and his positive or negative social identity is determined by the comparison between ingroup and some relevant outgroups.He will strive to maintain or achieve positive social identity,and when his social identity is unsatisfactory,he will try either to leave the erstwhile group for a higher-status group or to make that group more positively distinctive.The analysis of Pnin’s social identity process consists of two parts: his failed attempt to move upward to the academic American group and his return to the Russian group of émigrés.The long disgraceful exile in Europe urges Pnin to seek a relocation of social identity soon after he goes to America.In the first few years,Pnin holds a belief in social mobility which indicates that boundaries between social groups are permeable,and tries to achieve a relatively positive social identity through individual mobility.During that process,stereotyping conducted by his American colleagues causes the biggest trouble for his upward mobility.When he witnesses the corruptness of the high-status group and realizes the rigidity of the intergroup boundaries,he undergoes a transfer of social belief system from social mobility to social creativity,and a transfer of strategy from individual mobility to collective work.Pnin and his compatriots ensure their social identity by avoiding being compared with the high prestige group and choosing young American group as the outgroup for social comparison.But Pnin is further distanced from the academic American group after he returns to the Russian group and has to leave Waindell in the end.The relationship between Pnin’s social identity and identity anxiety is explored with analysis from four aspects: depersonalization,complicated disidentification,failed upward mobility and haunting memories.To be specific,those derogatory stereotypes of the Russian group imposed by his American colleagues frustrate him,stagnate his upward mobility and weaken his idiosyncratic personality,thus injecting anxiety into his social identity process.The difficulty in deviating from those internalized Russian norms and a fear of being unable to return make the disidentification with the Russian group a rather complicated step for Pnin to take.The corruptness of the academic group undermines Pnin’s imagination or stereotyping of that high prestige group,causing him confusion and anxiety about the goal he aims at in the individual mobility.Those memories of his childhood serve as a powerful reminder of his Russian identity as he tries to move upwards,which makes him feel burdensome.While those traumatic exile memories shared by all Russian émigrés and repressed by Pnin evoke the past experience full of disgrace,humiliation and despair with unusual force,causing him stress and anxiety and preventing him from fully functioning in his life.