ABSTRACT
This chapter considers which emotions are most important in identity formation and identity-based behavior. Several emotions are particularly consequential, prominently shame, pride, and guilt. After some general observations on these social emotions and identity, the chapter considers perhaps the most famous literary work treating the topic of identity, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This novella to a great extent focuses on shame and its effects on identity. Having explored the allegorical suggestions of this work, the chapter turns to an extreme case of emotion and identity, setting out some of the varieties and consequences of trauma and near-trauma for identity. In order to develop these reflections, the chapter takes up J. M. Coetzee’s Summertime . The third volume of Coetzee’s autobiographical trilogy, this work examines the complex nature of identity and its no less complex relationship to traumatic or near-traumatic guilt.
