A Study of Individual Identity in Marguerite Yourcenar's novels

Marguerite Yourcenar turns to self-making in all her works and regards it as the result of an evolutionary process. Marguerite Yourcenar designs the basis of this self-making by creating the characters in her novels so that the process of an independent viewpoint about self-making combines with the expression for individual identity. She has analyzed human identity in the effects taken from historical contents and myths. According to such viewpoint, the human's interpretation about their essence and the relationship with their environment is reflected in myths. From this viewpoint, explaining myths in literature and the author's historical ideas are expressed with a close relationship between the author and her artistic work as a model in self-making. This article tries to study analogically Marguerite Yourcenar's route in drawing individual identity and understanding self-making through the layout of characters in her novels.