Identity and the Writer

    “Out of Place” is not just the story of Said’s lost world, as he said in the introduction. It is also not just a story about identity. “Out of Place” is also a story about the creation of a writer. In his memoir “Out of Place” we see how Said was shaped into a writer.
    Caught between so many worlds the reader can’t help but lose track of them all, Said becomes the penultimate observer. And isn’t that what good writers are, reporters — those who honestly and accurately observe, record and report? Just to survive, balanced precariously as he is as a superminority, he must see all and hear all because not to know all is to be humiliated by an ever-present throng of critics. Said’s insightfulness was thus born of necessity. And his insightfulness found expression in his writing.
    Said experienced two different education systems and thus (at least) two different cultures. Diversity of education goes a long way towards broadening one’s mind and one’s horizons. Even if Said did not know what delis or corner markets were, just reading about them made his world bigger. Knowing something “else” exists makes things that otherwise seem impossible, possible. The imagination thus finds room to stretch and grow.
    It may seem strange to talk about imagination in conjunction with Said, given how severely restricted his life was, but his regiment of unimaginative information made his imagination thirsty for beautiful things. And his father’s wealth and social connections game him access to beautiful things, such as opera and film.
    And at least one part of his education — his time in an American school — made education seem “homey” and fun. That was enough to make Said want more of it.
    We also see the rise of the critic in Said on page 102. Said hunted for ways to recreate his pleasurable experiences at the opera house and cinema through discussions, readings, and recordings, looking for confirmation of the validity of his feelings.
    The things that shaped Said’s identity also shaped him as a writer. Said’s conflicted feelings regarding his father are palpable in his writing. Said’s admiration and fear of his father, as well as his deep disappointment in him, fill page after page of his narrative. We become raw with the power of it and cannot help but think that Said is exercising the very demon that drives his writing, through his writing.
    After all the questionable parenting we’ve seen out of Said’s father (and his mother, for that matter) it was nice to see the side that Said prizes in Chapter 5. Unsurprisingly, it is not the side Said would term “father.” Rather, it’s the side that lives in a world of profits — the successful businessman. Interestingly enough, the many things Said describes his father accomplishing are decidedly American things, such as product catalogues, structuring his company into departments or divisions, and owning a product from manufacturing, to packaging to distribution. So though Said may not see the American in himself, we certainly see the American in his father. And perhaps Said can attribute his drive to succeed as a writer to his driven father.
    But I digress. Said’s theme of place and being out of place also seems to be a natural part of a writer’s journey. As a writer you are forever looking at things both from within your work, as its creator, and from outside your work, as the audience; there’s no sense in sending a message if you don’t send a message they can hear. So a writer’s consciousness is always split between two worlds and thus the writer lives between them, never fully belonging to one or the other, always out of place.