El Hombre en Busca de Sí Mismo: La Subjetividad como Pregunta Narrativa

This article explores narrative representations of identity in contemporary literature, conceiving subjectivity not as a fixed entity, but as a symbolic and unstable construction in constant transformation. Through a qualitative, interpretative, and hermeneutic approach, selected literary works were analyzed in which the quest for self is thematized, explicitly or implicitly, within contexts of crisis, solitude, alterity, and cultural dislocation. The research follows a documentary, cross-sectional, and phenomenological design, using a theoretical-intentional sampling of texts characterized by their symbolic density and thematic resonance with key conceptual categories such as identity, symbol, desire, passions, and soul. Textual analysis was conducted through a symbolic-thematic reading guide, allowing for the open coding of literary motifs, archetypal images, and scenes of subjective transformation. The results are structured into five interrelated thematic cores: the oscillation between affirmation and becoming; alterity as a constitutive condition of subjectivity; symbolic solitude as a threshold of the soul; the sociocultural conditioning of identity; and the ethical and formative function of literature. These findings support the conclusion that literary narrative functions as a symbolic laboratory where the self is imagined, tested, and reconfigured, thereby revealing the epistemological and pedagogical potential of fiction. The study offers an original contribution to the dialogue between literature, cultural anthropology, and subjective formation, opening new lines of inquiry into the symbolic role of reading in the constitution of the self.