AMBIVALENCES IDENTITY IN THE BROTHERS, MILTON HATOUM

This article presents a reading of the novel The Brothers, by Milton Hatoum, focused on the narrator’s condition and his identity implications. Nael, the protagonist narrator, grew blended to a family of his own and random at the same time, without knowing his space amongst the group. The uncertainty of his origins have shaped a floating identity between the position of the son/grandson and the position of the employee aggregated to the group. The ambivalences of this identity are narrated searching for answers, the stabilization of Nael’s identity space. To this end, the main instrument is the memory, the only mean to resignify the past and fulfill the lack of wholeness which accompanies Nael: the wholeness is achieved with the agitation of the past, the memories and especially, the silences and the family forgetfulness. The reflections about the possible identity positions of the narrator find support in the theoretical concepts of memory and identity from a sociological and anthropological perspective. Key words: memory; identity; The Brothers.