Identity Crisis and the Struggle for Existence in Rawi Hage’s Cockroach and Carnival

In a postmodern contemporary world defined by skepticism, interrogations, and renovations of many conventions and formalities, the question of identity, as complex and debatable as it is, is disclosed and exposed to various questions and clashes.On the one hand, identity can be constructed and reconstructed by many factors and circumstances: internal and external.On the other hand, identity becomes more complex, intense, and problematic when it is being shaped and constructed in a violent, unstable, or displaced milieu.The latter could be war zones, war-torn and politically unstable societies, or immigrant societies in host lands.The latter is the main concern of this paper in the sense that it considers immigrant identities and their struggle to find, tolerate, and accept their identities on the one hand.On the other hand, it examines their struggle to maintain their mental stability, which is deteriorating due to all the traumatic, harsh memories and psychological baggage they still hold from their past, which is externalized in their inability and helplessness to tolerate their immigrant situation.Drawing on textual, thematic, and character analysis, this paper explores all these questions in depth through a close reading of Rawi Hage's Cockroach and Carnival.