The search for self, place and identity in the works of Adrienne Kennedy and Ghassan Kanafani

This dissertation deals with and explores the concepts of identity, self and place in the works of Adrienne Kennedy and Ghassan Kanafani. It aims to study and formulate a connection between the quest for identity and looking for a place. Also, it will attempt to demonstrate that the search for identity is a social as well as individual problem, and consequently it will try to demonstrate the inseparability between the search for place, self and identity. In the end, this dissertation will try to construct its own genuine definitions of identity and place in light of my readings of Kennedy and Kanafani's works.;In chapter one I will be talking about Kennedy and Kanafani and their importance in the 20th century literature. Then, chapter two, three and four are brought together because they depict the individual's struggle with the self and internalized social and cultural forces which are the fulcrum of these chapters and they show what Eric Erickson calls "the identity crisis.";My thesis, briefly, is that a personal identity is symptomatic of the fact that some modern colonial or prejudiced forces or systems deprive people/persons of psychological constructions, the lack of which, expressed by terms as estrangement, placelessness, alienation, meaninglessness, and identity problems, motivates persons towards abnormal activities and symbols with which to restore or to find new identity.;In the end, this dissertation will try to construct its own definitions of identity and place in light of my own readings of Kennedy's and Kanafani's works. Hopefully, I will try to provide or even suggest additional research topics in the field of comparative literature and provide positive applications and recommendations that pertain to the self, identity and place construction. I hope that my subsequent discussions of Adrienne Kennedy and Ghassan Kanafani, will have something to say to reflective persons who are concerned with the literatures and history of the East and West especially the oppressed class in the worlds of Kennedy and Kanafani.