Surviving the void: Identity threats and the plague of violence in Rawi Hage’s De Niro’s Game

Abstract

In the postcolonial era, many third-world countries, instead of enjoying prosperity, were driven into long
term civil wars and political unrest. Among the Arab countries which were plagued by a prolonged social
conflict is Lebanon where the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990) lasted nearly 15 years, devastating the social fabric of the country. Among the novelists who capture this critical period in the history of Lebanon is the Lebanese-Canadian author Rawi Hage. Characterized by his nihilist and apocalyptic tone, Rawi Hage portrays, in his De Niro’s Game (2006), the chaos of war and its impact on personal and national identities. Through the lens of Glynis Breakwell’s Identity Process theory, a social psychological framework, this paper aims to explore the different identity threats that the protagonists face during the chaos of violence, the correlation between public and private spheres and the versatile collection of coping strategies they adopt during wartime.