The Identity Thieves

Look around you. You are surrounded by people, and live in a society, in which identity theft is common practice. “The Guests of the Nation” by Frank O’Connor is a short story about the Irish War of Independence. The story is centered around a young man, Bonaparte, who is a soldier in the Irish Republican Army and his experience with two British hostages. “Snow Dark Forest” is a photograph by D. Reichardt. It displays a forest covered in snow, the trees bare of leaves and the white ground littered with dead branches. Although the photograph was not taken in black and white, it contains little color. Frank O’Connor in “The Guests of the Nation” and D. Reichardt in “Dark Snow Forest” both explore the destruction of individual identity through nature, war, and politics.

"Snow Dark Forest"

Reichardt explores the destruction of individual identities through nature. The subjects of “Dark Snow Forest” lack personal identities. This is displayed in the title itself. The subjects of the photograph, the trees, are not seen individually by the viewer. Instead, they are grouped together-- into a forest. The intricacies of each tree go unnoticed. Reichardt’s composition and lighting remove the individuality of each tree. By making the photograph dark, Reichardt removes the details of all but one tree, and his composition puts all but one tree into the background of the photograph. Reichardt subordinates the trees, taking away the individual details, and in doing so, the unique identities of each tree. This destruction of individuality is also reflected in “The Guests of the Nation,” where warfare is the major cause of personal identity destruction. O’Connor does not depict the characters as individuals. Rather, he depicts them as members of the larger entity, the army, that they belong to. Jeremiah Donovan, a soldier in the Irish Republican Army (IRA), displays this lack of a personal identity by saying, “The enemy have prisoners belonging to us, and now they're talking of shooting them… If they shoot our prisoners, we'll shoot theirs."​ Belcher and Hawkins, the two British hostages, didn’t personally shoot the Irish soldiers that Donovan mentioned; however, because of their allegiance to the British Army, they are to be killed. Donovan’s statement proves that Belcher and Hawkins’s personal identity, the people that they are, has no importance. As well as nature, war is a powerful tool in the destruction of individual identities.

Due to the power of war, O’Connor’s characters are fully aware of their lack of individual identities and the futility of their actions. Hawkins understands that the person that he is has no importance in the scheme of the war. Desperate not to be killed, he tries to convince the members of the IRA that he is significant:

“He asked us why Noble wanted to plug him. Why did any of us want to plug him? What had he done to us? Weren't we all chums? Didn't we understand him and didn't he understand us? Did we imagine for an instant that he'd shoot us for all the so-and-so officers in the so-and-so British Army?​”

Hawkins tries to convince the IRA that his army does not represent him, that his army’s actions don’t reflect his own. In the end, though, his innocence doesn’t matter. The British soldier is killed because of his ties to the larger entity. This absence of individual identity is not only shown in times of war.

Politics are another that characters’ individual identities are destroyed. In “The Guests of the Nation,” Hawkins often expresses his hatred for all capitalists, saying that they are the source of the world’s many problems. In an argument with Noble about religion, Hawkins states, “The capitalists pay the priests to tell you about the next world so that you won't notice what the bastards are up to in this.” Hawkins’s mistrust in capitalists is clear. Yet, in stating this mistrust, he is guilty of grouping together all capitalists and steals their identities from them. He implies that all capitalists bribe all priests, and he doesn’t acknowledge the possibility of exception to the generalization. Hawkins’s negative opinion is stated again when Bonaparte catches him, “Swearing at the capitalists for starting the German war,” in reference to World War I. Again, Hawkins groups together every capitalist and accuses them of creating the world’s problems. Not once does Hawkins single out a specific capitalist who conducted a specific action which caused such mistrust. Hawkins’s claim, for which he provides no support, unfairly represents several people who don’t fit into Hawkins’ generalization, stripping away their individuality and placing them under a label. Through Hawkins, O’Connor  explores the role of politics in the destruction of individual identities. 

The destruction of characters’ individual identities is a major element in “The Guests of the Nation” and “Dark Snow Forest.” Through nature, war, and politics, characters are grouped together and stripped of their individuality and importance. Their identity is stolen from them. These groupings are a motif of everyday life. Stripping people and things of their personal identity enables others to make generalizations which lead to stereotypes. This is evident in Hawkins’s political views. The avoidance of these stereotypes, and the negative implications that come with them, lies in the treatment of each individual as just that: an individual. In this lies the path to peace and justice.