Finding an Identity in Marie de France's Bisclavret and St. Augustine's Confessions

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The Contrasting Quest for Finding an Identity in Marie de France’s Bisclavret and St. Augustine’s Confessions 

In both Marie de France’s Bisclavret and St. Augustine’s Confessions, the main characters’ identity is connected in some way with his material possessions.  St. Augustine seeks a new identity within the church. He views his house, clothes, role in society and other possessions as aspects of his secular life and secular self, which he wants to separate from his new true religious self within the church. In Bisclavret, Bisclavret turns into a werewolf and loses everything that defined his true self: his house, his possessions and his role in society are all lost when he assumes the identity of a were wolf. In Bisclavret and Confessions, both characters want to distinguish themselves from their self their a true identity, the latter being the form that the character feels best expresses who he is.  This contrasting theme of dependence and independence from material goods to establish one’s true identity is used in both books to highlight and character and society’s values, whether religious or secular.

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In Confessions, Augustine’s clothes represent a secular self and lifestyle that he wants to abandon for a true religious identity and lifestyle within the church. When the reader is introduced to Augustine, Augustine is a well-known rhetor and lives a normal, secular life in society. Augustine reevaluates his life, decides he wants to convert to Christianity and renders all of his possessions that he has gathered throughout his sinful life worthless in his pursuit in serving God. Among these possessions are his clothes. Augustine has the choice of having his old life, wearing his every day clothes and going to ...

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