Compare and contrast the presentation of identity as a site of conflict in Things Fall Apart, The Ballad of Peckham Rye and North

In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Seamus Heaney’s North, and Muriel Spark’s The Ballad of Peckham Rye, identity is presented as a site of brutal conflict and violence, sundering the tense surface of the society in which it is presented. Through the presence of outsiders, there is an ideological conflict presented by all of the authors. Whether that be through the arrival of Christian Missionaries in Achebe’s post-colonial novel, or through the arrival of Dougal Douglas, who though part of the managing class, is single-handed in his efforts to challenge the basis of 1950s England - a result of his distaste for the Protestant work ethic. A clear repression of common identity follows, with the outsider becoming more powerful, something exemplified in Heaney’s North. The English intervene into the Irish Troubles, later deciding to govern the country from London, thus indicating a complete imposition of an identity. Finally, repression of the identity by the outsider leads to the growth of internal conflicts throughout general society. In Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the title-less men are the first to follow the missionaries – effectively concluding hundreds of years of thriving Igbo culture. Through these three linking steps, the authors Chinua Achebe, Muriel Spark and Seamus Heaney, present identity as a site of conflict. The idea of a Protestant work ethic is can be seen in The Ballad of Peckham Rye, and is where the first conflict in ideology is observed. Dougal is employed to ‘take this pulse of the people and plumb the industrial depths of Peckham’, yet he encourages labourers to ‘take Monday off’. The notion of Dougal having to ‘plumb the industrial depths’ suggests that he should be attempting to unclog the ineffective and inefficient pipes of society, whilst privately he conveys his aversion to the Protestant work ethic. American professor Stephen Shapiro writes, the working class cut ‘their pleasures in order to accumulate more and more money’. In the 1960s, the Protestant work ethic was both a social and economic concept in which people were obligated to work constantly and consistently as a symbol of thanks to God, in order to achieve their own goals. Furthermore, industrial work in this period of time was seen to be the focus of daily life, where inhabitants are grouped and placed in a social hierarchy according to where, and crucially how they worked. Because Dougal threatens the foundation of Peckham life by encouraging absenteeism, his role as an outsider is key as he fights against the ideology of the majority, and presents identity as a site of conflict. Yet in The Ballad of Peckham Rye, Dougal is not the only outsider. The managing class of Peckham have been outsiders since the industrial revolution – forming part of the clear divide between the capitalists and the proletariat. Characters such as Mr Druce do not follow the mannerisms of many working class people – something clearly seen in his contradiction of the idea that ‘it is considered immoral for a man to live with a wife who no longer appeals to him’. Mr Druce has an affair with head of the typing pool Miss Merle Coverdale. This is just one example of the conflict in ideals between the managing class and the working people. References to those who work at the company as ‘workers’ by such characters ensure that there is a clear divide between them and the managers – portraying the latter as superior to the former. The British Missionaries in Things Fall Apart appear to embody aspects of both outsiders in Spark’s text. ...