What Creates One’s Identity

In the book, “a complicated kindness”, written by Miriam Toews, the main character, Nomi Nickel, fights through many obstacles in her life and learns what reality is. Her characteristics and identities are built in her by the places she lives. The struggling in living without her mother and older sister has made her doing so much than what she would. The small town and her religion have a huge impact in her, where she hates the place but she learns to love it. Her dream of being free has more inspiration in her which makes her wanting to go to the outside world.
After learning so much as she has to, she becomes a responsible, kind and strong young adult. When one loss something they would always get something back in reverse, by which cases the one always learns from what she has to go through. In the book, Nomi’s sister and mother’s sudden disappearance has made her handle lot things that she wouldn’t do and handle by herself if she has a full family. “It’s been three years so far. My period started the day after Trudie left which means I’ve bled thirty-six times since they’ve been gone”(Toews, 5).
The quote shows us that Nomi, the main character, has to handle suffers as being a female after her mom has left her. She has to handle it without anyone’s helping. It was the responsible she learns without noticing it herself. “Doing laundry can be a really interesting thing and intriguing process. Emptying people’s pockets, noticing odours and stains and items, folding the clothes afterwards, opening drawers, putting everything away”(Toews, 35). In the process of learning, Nomi has become responsible and enjoying what she is learning to do.

An individual’s past always teaches them how to be a better and kind person. When one thinks about their past over with different point of views, they would realize what they had mistaken. From the book, Nomi often have flashbacks about what she did to others, she then could find the demerit she had done. She is a Mennonite, but she hated her own religion. After she’d look back what she did and how she treated some people, she has learnt how she should treat others nicely. “My guidance counselor has suggested to me that I change my attitude about this place and learn to love it. But I do, I told her.
Oh, that’s rich, she said. That’s rich” (Toews, 8). “East village has given me the faith to believe in the possibility of happy family reunion someday” (Toews, 324). The quotes tells the change in Nomi, where she becomes someone different. From hating the village to loving it was by changing in herself. One’s dream leads possibilities to the one. The courage of people do something they were afraid has to come from what she believe. Nomi, the girl who lives in a religious town with lots of rules, wants to have freedom. She has a dream of being herself. She wants to get out of the town and a new life.
After her father leaves her, which he knows he has to leave first to let go of Nomi, Nomi decide to go to the outside world with no fears. “I dream of escaping into the real world. I would love t read the diary of a girl my age- a girl from the city. Or a textbook on urban planning. Or a New York City phone book. I would be killed to own a New York City phone book” (Toews, 8). “I meant to thank you Ray for, in the midst of his own multitude of crap and bewilderment, knowing one true thing. That I would never have left him and that if I were ever to get out of that town, he would have to leave first” (Toews, 322).
Nomi wants to go outside so much she would do anything to have freedom, but she promises her father that she’d never leave her father alone. But after her father left, she has noting to worry about. She has the courage of going outside. She is strong. One’s identity is built in them by many factors; life struggling, past and dream. All of the factors are based on realities. Dream is a big part of reality when one believes in themselves. An individual might not realize how dream works out for their identity, but it is the most important part of building their identities.