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Identity in Adolescence
The author writes in a manner that is both scholarly and engaging. She
is truly an expert in the topic of adolescent identity, and her depth of
knowledge shines through. I love this book!
(Susan Moore, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia)
Fully updated to include the most recent research and theoretical

developments in the field, the third edition of Identity in Adolescence
examines the interaction of individual and social context in the process
of identity formation. Setting the developmental tradition in context,
Jane Kroger begins by providing a brief overview of theoretical
approaches to adolescent identity formation currently in use. This
introduction is followed by a discussion of five developmental models
which reflect a range of attempts, from the oldest to among the most
recent, to describe this process; works of Erik Erikson, Peter Blos,
Lawrence Kohlberg, Jane Loevinger and Robert Kegan are included in
this volume. Although focusing on each theorist in turn, this volume
also compares and integrates the varied theoretical models and research
findings and sets out some of the practical implications for social
response to adolescents. Different social and cultural conditions and
their effects on the identity formation process are also covered, as are
contemporary contextual, narrative and post-modern approaches to
understanding and researching identity issues.
Jane Kroger is Professor of Psychology, University of Tromsø, Norway.

Her previous publications include Discussions on Ego Identity and
Identity Development: Adolescence through Adulthood.
Adolescence and Society
Series editor: John C. Coleman
The Trust for the Study of Adolescence
The general aim of the series is to make accessible to a wide readership the
growing evidence relating to adolescent development. Much of this material is
published in relatively inaccessible professional journals, and the goals of the
books in this series will be to summarise, review and place in context current
work in the field so as to interest and engage both an undergraduate and a
professional audience.
The intention of the authors is to raise the profile of adolescent studies
among professionals and in institutions of higher education. By publishing
relatively short, readable books on interesting topics to do with youth and
society, the series will make people more aware of the relevance of the subject
of adolescence to a wide range of social concerns.
The books will not put forward any one theoretical viewpoint. The authors
will outline the most prominent theories in the field and will include a balanced
and critical assessment of each of these. Whilst some of the books may have a
clinical or applied slant, the majority will concentrate on normal development.
The readership will rest primarily in two major areas: the undergraduate
market, particularly in the fields of psychology, sociology and education; and
the professional training market, with particular emphasis on social work,
clinical and educational psychology, counselling, youth work, nursing and
teacher training.
Also available in this series:

Adolescent Health Adolescent Gambling
Patrick C.L. Heaven Mark Griffiths
The Nature of Adolescence Youth, AIDS and Sexually
(second edition) Transmitted Diseases
John C. Coleman and Leo Hendry Susan Moore, Doreen Rosenthal and
Anne Mitchell
The Adolescent in the Family
Patricia Noller and Victor Callan Fathers and Adolescents
Shmuel Shulman and
Young People’s Understanding of
Inge Seiffge-Krenke
Society
Adrian Furnham and Barrie Stacey Adolescent Coping
Erica Frydenberg
Growing up with Unemployment
Anthony H. Winefield, Marika Young People’s Involvement in Sport
Tiggermann, Helen R. Winefield and Edited by John Kremer, Karen Trew
Robert D. Goldney and Shaun Ogle
Young People’s Leisure and Lifestyles The Nature of Adolescence
Leo B. Hendry, Janet Shucksmith, John C. Coleman and Leo B. Hendry
John G. Love and Anthony Glendinning
Social Networks and Social Influences
Sexuality in Adolescence in Adolescence
Susan Moore and Doreen Rosenthal John Cotterell
Identity in Adolescence
The Balance between Self
and Other
Third Edition
Jane Kroger
Hove and New York

First published 2004 by Routledge
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
Copyright © 2004 Psychology Press
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kroger, Jane, 1947–
Identity in adolescence : the balance between self and other / Jane
Kroger.—3rd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-28106-7 (hardcover)—ISBN 0-415-28107-5 (pbk.)
1. Identity (Psychology) in adolescence. I. Title.
BF724.3.I3K76 2004
155.5′182—dc22 2004008029
ISBN 0-203-34686-6 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-415-28107-5 (PBK)

ISBN 0-415-28106-7 (HBK)
This book is again dedicated to those who search and to those
who assist along the way.
True ‘engagement’ with others is the result and the test of firm
self-delineation.
(Erik Erikson 1968: 167)
Contents
Preface to the third edition xiii
1 Adolescence and the problem of identity:

Historical, socio-cultural and developmental views 1
Historical approaches to adolescent identity 2
Socio-cultural approaches to adolescent identity 3
Developmental approaches to adolescent identity 7
The developmental approach detailed 8
Identity as the balance between self and other 10
Further reading 14
2 Adolescence as identity synthesis: Erikson’s

psychosocial approach 15
Erikson the person 16
The nature of ego identity 18
Identity: development and resolutions 19
An optimal sense of identity 23
Identity as a stage in the life-cycle scheme 23
Criticism of Erikson’s identity concept 34
Measuring ego identity 35
Historical backdrop to Erikson’s and Marcia’s
psychosocial schemes 38
Research findings on adolescent identity formation 39
Criticism of Marcia’s identity status construct 46
Implications for social response 47
Summary 51
Further reading 52
x Identity in Adolescence
3 Adolescence as a second individuation process:
Blos’s psychoanalytic perspective and an object
relations view 53
Blos the person 54
The nature of character formation 55
The challenges detailed 57
Character formation through adolescence 66
A healthy character structure 68
Criticism of Blos’s identity construct 69
Elaborations on the second individuation process
of adolescence 71
Measuring the adolescent separation–individuation
process 74
Historical backdrop to Blos’s separation–individuation
challenge 77
Research findings on adolescent separation–
individuation 77
Summary 88
Further reading 88
4 Identity through a cognitive-developmental lens:

Kohlberg’s contributions 90
Kohlberg the person 91
Kohlberg’s view of identity 93
Moral reasoning development 94
An optimal level of moral reasoning 101
Measuring moral reasoning 103
Historical backdrop to Kohlberg’s moral reasoning
model 105
Criticism of Kohlberg’s construct 106
Research findings on the development of moral
reasoning 111
Summary 121
Further reading 122
Contents xi
5 Ego development in adolescence: Loevinger’s
paradigm 123
Loevinger the person 124
The nature of the ego 125
The ego and its development 127
An optimal level of ego development 137
Measuring ego development 138
Historical backdrop to Loevinger’s model of ego
development 139
Criticism of Loevinger’s construct 141
Research findings on ego development 143
Summary 154
Further reading 155
6 Identity as meaning-making: Kegan’s constructive-

developmental approach 156
Kegan the person 157
Kegan’s view of identity 158
The evolution of meaning-making 163
An optimal mode of meaning-making 173
Measuring of meaning-making balance 174
Historical backdrop to Kegan’s constructive-
developmental model 175
Criticism of Kegan’s construct 176
Research findings on the evolving self 178
Summary 188
Further reading 188
7 Towards integration and conclusions 190

Commonalities across theoretical models 191
Contrasts across theoretical models 194
Commonalities and contrasts in implications for
social response 198
Empirical comparisons across models 200
Development in context 201
xii Identity in Adolescence
Balance between self and other: new directions for
identity theory and research 203
Conclusions 208
Bibliography 210
Name Index 243
Subject Index 249
Preface to the third edition
In an age of contextual, narrative, and post-modern influences in

psychology, I have sometimes been asked why retain a developmental
focus to the question of how identity forms and changes over the time
of adolescence. Of course, there are many approaches one might take to
understand how adolescents come to construct themselves in a world
that is constructing them, and different research emphases have gained
and lost favor throughout various historical eras. My retention of a
developmental focus in this volume was made for a number of reasons.
First, I regard Erik Erikson’s theory as one of the earliest examples
of developmental contextualism in the study of adolescent identity
development. Developmental contextualism is an approach currently
popular in developmental psychology. It stresses that understanding
developmental change lies neither in the individual alone nor in the
social context alone, but rather in an interaction between the two over
time (Lerner 1993). Erikson (1968) exemplified this contemporary
approach, as he examined ways in which individual biological pro-
cesses, psychological needs, defenses and desires interact with the
demands, expectations and responses of a social context to create
change in both the individual and society over time. Additionally, each
of the five developmental models reviewed in the pages ahead has gen-
erated a wealth of empirical literature since the second edition of this
volume was produced, raising a number of fascinating, new questions.
Furthermore, the five models have also now been examined in a multi-
tude of cultural and/or social contexts, and these investigations provide
valuable new insights into how development and context interact to
affect the course of the identity formation process over and beyond the
years of adolescence.
A further purpose of this volume is to highlight the time of ado-
lescence in selected theories of self, ego and identity development.
When I wrote the first edition of Identity in Adolescence, published in
xiv Identity in Adolescence
1989, studies of adolescent development in general and adolescent
identity development in particular were in their infancy. In the interval
since that time, there has been an enormous increase in research atten-
tion directed to issues of both normative and non-normative develop-
ment during life’s second decade. Overview textbooks on adolescent
development continue to flourish and a number of new journals
devoted to the study of adolescence have appeared. There has, however,
been an additional demand for more specialized texts as well as journals
dealing with specific issues during the adolescent passage. The present
volume and others included in the Adolescence and Society series edited
by John Coleman reflect this important trend. The present volume
focuses specifically on identity during adolescence. Identity has also
become the central theme of at least four new journals in psychology,
all of which have appeared since the second edition of this volume was
produced. Alongside this increasing interest in the study of identity,
there has also been a growing concern among many social scientists to
integrate their varied theoretical models and research findings with
some discussion of practical implications for social response to adoles-
cents in the identity formation process. The present volume, again,
reflects this ambition. Finally, a desire to understand identity issues for
adolescents growing up in a diversity of cultural, ethnic and social class
contexts has also been emerging. The present volume reflects the
importance of contextual-developmental interactions in the adolescent
identity formation process.
The third edition of Identity in Adolescence examines some of the
ways in which young people may mature to reinterpret and make sense
of their important relationships and their surrounding environments, as
their environments come to recognize, acknowledge and make sense
of them. The five developmental models selected for coverage in this
volume reflect a range of attempts from the oldest to among the most
recent efforts to describe this process. This volume also addresses how
different social and cultural conditions may be associated with varied
resolutions to the identity formation process, as late adolescents pre-
pare to enter adult life. Chapter 1 sets the developmental tradition in
context by providing a brief overview of alternative contemporary the-
oretical approaches to adolescent identity formation currently in use. In
this chapter, assumptions of selected historical, socio-cultural and
developmental orientations are elucidated and a more detailed rationale
for the volume’s present focus is presented. Theoretical chapters then
turn to the writings of five major developmental theorists addressing
identity issues: Erik Erikson, Peter Blos, Lawrence Kohlberg, Jane
Loevinger and Robert Kegan. These theorists have all grappled with the
Preface to the third edition xv
nature of the ‘I’ and the special transformations it normatively under-
goes during adolescence, as well as the social conditions associated with
varied resolutions. While taking different avenues of approach, each
theorist maps a model of identity that allows one to formulate cul-
turally appropriate, facilitative individual, group and institutional
responses for those undergoing the identity formation process of ado-
lescence. The final chapter focuses on comparisons and contrasts across
these models. It also provides a response to various contextual, narra-
tive and post-modern approaches to understanding and researching
identity issues at the present time.
Since this work may be serving as an introduction to the field of
adolescent identity formation for many readers, introductory sections
to key theoretical concepts of each chapter have been retained from
earlier editions. Where theoretical modifications have been made, I
have drawn upon the most recent publications available and have
changed theoretical summaries accordingly. I have retained and
updated earlier sections on the theorist’s biography, alongside sections
devoted to criticism, researches, current research directions and impli-
cations for social response for each of the five developmental models
of identity. I have also included an expanding body of recent research
on social and cultural forces impacting on each development frame-
work presented in this volume. At the same time, I have provided
more subheadings within major sections that I hope will assist the
reader to follow key themes under review. In addition, I have added
two new sections to each chapter: one details the measures most
commonly and currently in use for identity assessment, while the sec-
ond overviews the historical backdrop to each model. I have also
provided a list of additional recommended reading at the conclusion
of each chapter. I hope the reader will find these new additions helpful
in both understanding and responding to the identity formation process
of adolescence.
This volume has again been sparked by my concern over adults’ fre-
quent failure to recognize, meet and respond optimally to the special
needs of adolescents in their various stages of identity development.
While each young person is unique in personal history, talents and
attributes, there do appear to be certain underlying and predictable
structural reorganizations that comprise the identity formation process.
Once recognized and addressed, opportunity exists for supporting the
process of change, when it occurs, in facilitative and culturally
appropriate ways. Rather than chance occurrence, effective develop-
mental intervention can be a planned event. It is hoped that an under-
standing of the developmental and contextual approaches to identity
xvi Identity in Adolescence
presented in this volume might promote more effective social responses
to adolescents undergoing the identity formation process.
Acknowledgments
Thoughts and observations presented in the pages ahead are the
product of many stimulating discussions with colleagues, students and
friends as well as many solitary ruminations over the past four decades
of my life. As a university teacher and researcher in lifespan develop-
ment, I continue to learn by all that my students, research interviewees
and colleagues teach me.
Since publication of the first edition of Identity in Adolescence, I have
had several periods of sabbatical leave which have enabled me to meet
and interact with many of the theorists and researchers covered in the
pages ahead. Time in 1988–1989 as a visiting research associate at the
Erik H. and Joan M. Erikson Center, Cambridge Hospital, Harvard
Medical School, provided me with opportunities for many engaging
conversations with both of the Eriksons as well as others in the Cam-
bridge community. I spent a semester in 1993 as a visiting scholar at the
Henry A. Murray Research Center for the Study of Lives at Radcliffe
College, which again enabled me to engage in many stimulating inter-
actions. At that time, I received the thoughtful feedback of Drs Gil
Noam, Gus Blasi and John Levine as I worked toward integrating the-
oretical models. Dr Bob Kegan provided many wonderful learning
opportunities through his teachings on adult development. Dr Anne
Colby, Director of the Murray Research Center, provided me with
access to the many rich resources of data archived there. A further
semester of leave spent with Dr James Marcia and his graduate students
in 2001 at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, also gave me
many rich experiences that have enhanced the third edition of this
volume.
The University of Tromsø has also been generous in its provision for
leave and other supports for the completion of this current edition. I am
particularly grateful to Jan-Are Johnsen for his assistance in the prepar-
ation of this edition. Friends and colleagues both here in Tromsø and
on more distant shores have again been patient with me and the time
and effort this current volume has demanded.
Finally, I would again like to thank Dr John Coleman, Director of
the Centre for the Study of Adolescence in the UK and Psychology
Press for their support in producing this volume. Over the years since
Identity in Adolescence was first produced, I have also had the
opportunity to meet and correspond with a number of readers, and
Preface to the third edition xvii
many of your very helpful ideas have once again been incorporated in
this volume. To you, I also express my grateful thanks.
Jane Kroger
Havnes, Håkøya
Eidkjosen, Norway
January 2004
1 Adolescence and the problem
of identity
Historical, socio-cultural and
developmental views
‘Listen,’ F. Jasmine said. ‘What I’ve been trying to say is this. Doesn’t it
strike you as strange that I am I, and you are you? I am F. Jasmine
Addams. And you are Berenice Sadie Brown. And we can look at each
other, and touch each other, and stay together year in and year out in
the same room. Yet always I am I, and you are you. And I can’t ever be
anything else but me, and you can’t ever be anything else but you. Have
you ever thought of that? And does it seem to you strange?’
(F. Jasmine Addams, in Carson McCullers’
Member of the Wedding, 1946)
When and how does [one] develop a sense of ‘I’?

(Erik Erikson, Infancy and the Rest of Life, 1983)
F. Jasmine (alias Frankie) Addams’s ruminations address a question

that adolescents and social scientists alike have pondered over preced-
ing decades: When and how does one develop a sense of ‘I’? While the
foundations of ‘I’ are formed in infancy through the interactions of
caretakers and child, adolescence does seem to be a time, at least in
many contemporary, technologically advanced western cultures, when
one is confronted with the task of self-definition. ‘I can’t ever be any-
thing else but me,’ begins Frankie. However trying to find out who ‘me’
is becomes Frankie’s task in Carson McCullers’ (1946) novel, Member
of the Wedding. The process of self-definition is something which
scholars have attempted to understand from a variety of perspectives –
historical, socio-cultural and developmental. While Frankie, herself is
not concerned with all of these issues, she eloquently gives voice to
some of the forces that help shape her ‘I’, her sense of identity, her place
in the world.
Frankie’s story is set during the Second World War in a small, rural
US southern town during a seemingly endless summer. Frankie is about
2 Identity in Adolescence
to turn ‘twelve and five-sixths’, feeling very much betwixt and between
meaningful social niches (which summer has a way of exacerbating),
and wrestling with the matter of belonging. Given an option, Frankie
would have been a boy and gone to war as a marine. However, this was
not to be her fate, so she decided instead to give blood (at least a quart
a week). In this way, a part of her would be in the veins of Allies
fighting all over the world (the reddist and strongest blood ever – a true
medical wonder). Soldiers would return, saying they owed their lives to
‘Addams’ (not ‘Frankie’). But this scenario was not to be her fate either,
for Frankie was too young, and the Red Cross would not take her
blood. Thinking about the war for very long made Frankie afraid, not
because of the fighting but because the war refused to include her, to
give her a place in the world. Actually, thinking for very long, at all,
made Frankie afraid as well, for it brought up questions of who she
was, of what she would be in the world, of why she was standing where
she was at that moment – alone. Through the trials of trying to adopt a
new name (F. Jasmine Addams), a new family, a new town, Frankie
struggled to establish her sense of ‘I’ and where she belonged.
Frankie’s identity struggles may be understood through a variety
of theoretical lenses. Historical, socio-cultural, and developmental tra-
ditions have all arisen to account for various dimensions of human
development, including identity. Under these broad rubrics, a number
of specific approaches have arisen. It is my intention below to note
only the general emphases given within each tradition and to refer the
reader to further resources that can provide more specific details at
the conclusion of this chapter.
Historical approaches to adolescent identity

Were Frankie born in an earlier historical era, her story would probably
not have given rise to a novel, for self-definition would not have been
a problem. As Erikson (1975) has noted, the issue of identity holds
historical relativity. Erikson suggested that identity only became a
matter of concern in the United States late in the nineteenth century
because a new generation of immigrants were attempting to define
themselves in a land far removed from their ancestral homes. Baumeister
(1986, 1987) has provided an excellent and more extensive overview of
how the problematic nature of identity for many adolescents has
evolved and intensified over the course of history.
Baumeister noted that medieval adolescent and adult identities were
defined in a very straightforward manner. The social rank and kinship
network into which one was born determined one’s place for life. While
Adolescence and the problem of identity 3
some changes of title or role were inevitable over the course of time,
general possibilities were circumscribed by the clan. In the early modern
period, the rise of a middle class began a shift in the standard for self-
definition when wealth rather than kinship ties became the new measure
of social status and hence self-definition. The later Protestant split and
subsequent decline of the Christian faith gave rise to an era in which
individuals became able at least to accept or reject the religious tradi-
tions of their forebears. During the romantic era, most still espoused
Christian beliefs, but these held less influence over their daily lives.
Furthermore, society was often perceived to be oppressive and the need
to reject some of its demands was recognized. By the Victorian era, late
adolescents and adults increasingly began to reject Christian dogma
and a focal concern was whether or not morality could survive without
religion. Thus, Victorian adolescents had to define their adult identities
without clear guidelines in the midst of general cultural uncertainty on
issues of appropriate values.
Such difficulties for adolescents continued into the twentieth and
twenty-first centuries, as the process of self-definition and identity
formation became normative developmental tasks (Erikson 1968).
Cushman (1990) further suggests that at least in the United States
absence of community, tradition and shared meaning has created the
conditions for an ‘empty self’; a sense of ‘I’ which experiences chronic
emotional hunger for adolescents and adults alike. Cushman argues
that the ‘empty self’ attempts to be soothed, to be ‘filled up’ by con-
sumer products. Advertising and psychotherapy are the two professions
that Cushman cites as being most involved in individuals’ attempts
to heal the ‘empty self’. Viewed historically, the process of identity
formation and the process of self-definition, at least for many youths in
western contexts, is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Socio-cultural approaches to adolescent identity

In her efforts toward self-definition, Frankie voices her intense desire to
break free – free of her family, town and many of the socio-cultural
conditions that constrain her. Berenice, the black housekeeper, attempts
to understand:
‘I think I have a vague idea what you were driving at,’ [responds
Berenice]. ‘We all of us somehow caught. We born this way or that
way and we don’t know why. But we caught anyhow. . . . We each
one of us somehow caught all by ourself. Is that what you was
trying to say?’
‘I don’t know,’ F. Jasmine said. ‘But I don’t want to be caught.’
‘Me neither,’ said Berenice. ‘Don’t none of us. I’m caught worse
than you is.’
F. Jasmine understood why she had said this, and it was John
Henry who asked in his child voice: ‘Why?’
‘Because I am black,’ said Berenice.
(McCullers 1946: 113)
Frankie is ‘caught’ by her social class and ethnicity as well as the

technological influences, societal norms and legal requirements for ado-
lescents in her culture. The socio-cultural conditions of her society,
some would contend, create her problems of identity and self-definition.
A variety of theoretical orientations to identity are represented under
this general socio-cultural approach, ranging from proposals that iden-
tity is a reflection of individual adaptation to context (e.g. Baumeister
and Muraven 1996; Côté and Levine 2002) or a reciprocal interaction
between person and context (e.g. developmental contextualism, Lerner
1993) to more radical suggestions that one’s identity is merely an
imprint of one’s social and cultural surroundings. Baumeister and
Muraven (1996) exemplify the initial stance that identity is formed
as one’s adaptations to social, cultural and historical contexts. This
suggestion does not imply that identity acquisition is merely a passive
response by individuals to their social contexts but neither is identity an
entirely self-determined event. Rather, people are active agents in
choosing, altering and modifying their identities in ways that will pro-
vide greatest satisfaction within their social and cultural situations.
‘People do not simply turn out the way society dictates, but neither can
they develop identity without regard to the socio-cultural context. The
self constructs for itself a definition that allows it to get along reason-
ably well in its social environment’ (Baumeister and Muraven 1996:
415). Similarly, Adams and Marshall (1996) review and reflect on a
wide range of literature to propose more specific macro- and micro-
levels of influence on identity, mediated through inter- and intra-
personal processes. Macro-levels of influence on identity development
include cultural ideologies as reflected in various social institutions,
while micro-levels of influence reflect dialogue, conversation, inter-
actions between individuals. In approaching Frankie’s dilemma from
this person-in-context orientation, cultural conditions that give indi-
viduals a freedom of choice also restrict Frankie’s desires for self-
expression due to restrictions of age, gender and social class. With the
individual qualities of determination, perseverance, an understanding
of causal relationships, openness to new experiences, internal locus of
control and many personal characteristics, Frankie seeks an adaptation
and place in the world that results in more personal satisfaction than
she now finds.
Another means by which social scientists have been attempting to
understand identity formation in context has come through an orienta-
tion known as developmental contextualism (Lerner 1993). This
approach is based on two key ideas:
1 There are factors from numerous, qualitatively distinct levels of

analysis involved in human development.
2 Factors within these various levels of analysis exist in reciprocal
relationships.
‘In short, in developmental contextualism the person-context relation

is understood as an organization of mutually influential variables . . .
changing over time (Lerner 1993). It is not the study of person in con-
text, but rather study of the interaction among many individual and
contextual systems and their influences on one another. Thus, a devel-
opmental contextualist would look at how different personal and con-
textual factors in Frankie’s world reciprocally interact and influence
one another to create change in Frankie’s sense of identity over time.
A further group of writers has focused more strongly on contextual
implications that such conditions hold for individual identity forma-
tion. Triandis (1989), for example, differentiated ‘tight’ from ‘loose’
societies on the basis of how much opportunity for individual choice
a society would allow. Thus, enormous variation may be seen across
cultural contexts in how much latitude youth are given for creating or
realizing their identity interests. Adolescents in collectivist societies are
not faced with the choices and decisions that youths in contemporary
western cultures must make in defining their own identities (Côté
and Levine 2002). Tupuola (1993) interviewed New Zealand and
Samoan-born youths living in New Zealand about their experiences of
adolescence. One Samoan-born participant summarized the responses
of many as follows:
I feel I still can’t answer the adolescent thing. As a Samoan born, I

had never heard of it [adolescence] until I came to New Zealand. I
don’t think it was part of my life because it is a western concept,
and from a non-western society all those development stages didn’t
relate to me. All I know is that my aiga [family] and my community
and my culture are important. They determine the way I behave,
think, and feel.
Sometimes I think that we [in Samoa] are children for most of
our lives, and it can take a very long time for us to become adults. It
does not matter how old you are, [for] if you are not considered
worthy or responsible enough by your elders then you will not be
treated as an adult. You really have to earn your place in the
Samoan culture. So adolescence as a developmental stage is foreign
to our culture.
(Subject #3, Tupuola 1993: 308, 311)
Cultural conditions for this young woman made the issue of identity
formation and finding her place in the societal milieu a rather straight-
forward process. While some of the roles that she was expected to fulfill
were not easy, the actual process of identifying suitable roles for herself
within the larger society was not in itself a complex problem. Tupuola
further reports that a number of participants in her study consulted
Samoan dictionaries over the course of their interviews and were
unable even to find a Samoan word meaning ‘adolescence’.
The most radical of approaches to the person-in-context dilemma
has come from the post-modernists. There are again many different
schools of thinking within this approach, but common to all is the
denial of any general pattern of development across individuals, a de-
legitimizing of anything structural or hierarchical in form, of anything
that is consistent across situations. Post-modernists consider this to be
‘the end of the age of development’ (e.g. Gergen 1991), a denial that
there is any depth and design to the course of change over time. When
addressing issues of identity, post-modernists argue for the existence
of multiple identities that are assumed in different contexts. Post-
modernity emphasizes fragmentation, discontinuity and only local
rather than general themes. In the words of Rattansi and Phoenix
(1997), identity is fluid and fragmented and not something that exists
within the individual. Thus, we all have a range of identities, each
having salience in a different context. Identity is also conceptualized
by post-modernists as a culturally appropriated mode of discourse
(Slugoski and Ginsburg 1989). Many post-modernists would hear
Frankie’s narrative as an example of a teenager with fragmented iden-
tities, created through the language that she uses to tell her story. That
story reflects identities created in the whims of the moment, lacking any
central core or continuity across situations. Great discrepancies in the
demands of various contexts induce ‘situated’ identities, ultimately
leading to a sense of no self at all (Gergen 1991). While such radical
positions are not widespread in the study of adolescent identity, they
present a view in direct contrast to assumptions of the developmental
approach described below. This approach is used as a framework for the
remainder of this volume.
Developmental approaches to adolescent identity

Social and historical circumstances have undoubtedly left teenagers
from technologically advanced cultures with ambiguous role prescrip-
tions to struggle with the problem of self-definition. A number of social
scientists, however, have focused more intently on what Frankie
describes as a changing sense of ‘I’ – on an internal, developmental
transformation of the sense of self and consequent ways of filtering
and making sense of one’s life experiences. Intrapsychic restructuring
during adolescence brings identity questions to the surface. While
socio-cultural factors undoubtedly may accelerate, delay or even arrest
this developmental process, sequential stages in the transformation
of the self and its way of understanding exist, according to this
developmental perspective. Transformations in cognitive and affective
processes or qualitative change in some self (ego) structure which sub-
tends both of these facets of identity have been held accountable for
alterations to the subjective sense of ‘I’ frequently experienced during
life’s second decade – at least in societies where adult identities for
youth are not prescribed.
While acknowledging the contributions of society to creating the
phenomenon of adolescence with its concomitant questions of identity,
this book focuses on five developmental models addressing the intra-
psychic potential emergence of the self within certain social and cul-
tural frames of reference. All approaches attend carefully to the period
of adolescence with the internal reorganization it may bring. However,
all respect the process of identity formation as a lifelong enterprise and
are reviewed in this volume in a manner reflecting this understanding.
Just as the significance of a painting cannot be fully grasped without
knowledge of its contextual origins and resulting influences on later art,
so identity formation during adolescence cannot be fully appreciated
without knowledge of its childhood antecedents and consequent adult
states.
Until the 1960s, much of the literature on adolescent psychology
came from psychoanalytic treatment centers. There was often a stress
on the ‘universality of ego weakness’ in adolescence, and the depiction
of an ego ‘besieged by the drives and unable to rely on the now-
dangerous parental ego for support’ (Josselson 1980: 188). Such
portrayals lay at the heart of the ‘turmoil’ theory of adolescent devel-
opment which presented storm and stress as normative features of the
teenage years. It was only when researchers of the 1960s and 1970s (e.g.
Douvan and Adelson 1966; Offer and Offer 1975) began to find little
evidence of psychopathology or even much storm and stress among
large samples of adolescents in the general population of the United
States that attention began to shift from clinical to more normative
populations for an understanding of developmental processes occur-
ring during adolescence. Literature on adolescent development has
mushroomed in the last four decades, with the creation of at least six
new North American and European journals and two professional
societies in these locales devoted solely to research on this stage of the
life cycle. Additionally, the field of adolescence has witnessed greater
specialization in its textbook and journal offerings. A number of sup-
plementary textbooks now deal with selected issues of adolescence,
including the current volume on identity. Interest in identity has also
been evidenced by the emergence of at least four new journals in the
past decade devoted to themes of self or identity (Côté and Levine
2002). It is the intention of this book to examine, through critical analy-
sis, the contributions of five theories related to identity development
during adolescence. While the task of identity formation, revision and
maintenance is a lifelong challenge, it is the intention of this volume to
highlight adolescence and the identity issues normatively encountered
when societies generally demand an initial resolution. While some less
than optimal identity resolutions will be presented, the focus rests
primarily on those normative though ‘cataclysmic [adolescent] ego
changes that hardly make a sound’ (Josselson 1980: 190).
The developmental approach detailed

As developmental models, the theories of Erik Erikson, Peter Blos,
Lawrence Kohlberg, Jane Loevinger and Robert Kegan presented in the
pages ahead all have certain features in common. Rather than depicting
change in a linear fashion, quantitative in nature, these approaches all
focus on change more qualitative in kind, developmental in form. The
linear or non-stage view of change holds that something which exists
early in life becomes merely bigger or more pronounced through time,
while the developmental orientation attempts to detail how that which
existed at earlier life stages ‘becomes transformed into something
related to, but also different than, what existed earlier’ (Breger 1974: 3).
Some approaches to identity are non-developmental in nature. The
ancient Greeks defined personality in terms of character type; an indi-
vidual was merely one of four basic personality types, never undergoing
qualitative change. More recent efforts to describe personality in terms
of body build (such as endomorph, mesomorph, ectomorph), character
disposition (such as introvert, extrovert), or psychiatric diagnostic
classification (such as sociopath, schizophrenic, manic depressive) are
all examples of linear or non-developmental views of identity. These
labels simply assume that ‘a person’s type resides within and is stimu-
lated to unfold with experience’ (Breger 1974: 6). In developmental
models of identity, by contrast, it is possible to detect qualitatively
different stages of organization, each with its own unique features that
will never again exist in the same form. Once stage reorganization has
occurred, it is simply not possible to go back to view the world through
earlier, less complex modes of organization (however much one may
wish to do so at times). Developmental stages exist in a hierarchical and
invariant sequence, each building on that which has gone before,
incorporating yet transcending the last stage to provide a foundation
for the next (Loevinger 1987).
Theorists reviewed in this volume all describe identity as a develop-
mental process of qualitative stage reorganization rather than a mere
unfolding of static personality characteristics. While theorists reviewed
in the pages to follow are not the only writers holding a developmental
perspective on identity development during adolescence, their writings
have been both central to theory construction as well as fundamental
to later researches on the adolescent identity formation process.
Researches generated by theorists and later investigators reviewed here
have also contributed to an increased understanding of the role that
context plays in shaping the developmental course. With growing inter-
est over the last 15 years in the relation between identity development
and context, a variety of studies has addressed social and cultural
circumstances associated with facilitating identity development as well
as arrest. Such researches are included in each chapter and highlighted
in the conclusion, which summarizes circumstances associated with
developmental progression, regression and stability. It is my view that
an appreciation of developmental processes, in combination with con-
textual forces, provides the best means of understanding issues involved
in the identity formation task of adolescence at the present time.
When identity is viewed as a developmental phenomenon, some
important implications for social response become apparent. Rather
than being a collection of static traits, identity is conceptualized as a
structural organization more responsive to opportunities that will obvi-
ate developmental arrest as well as promote further movement toward
maturity. For example, no longer do we need to consider an individual
with the label ‘sociopathic personality disorder’ as having a static
personality trait unamenable to change, but rather as someone with a
condition of childhood developmental arrest who, with appropriate
intervention, may be helped to embark on a more normative develop-
mental course in varied life contexts (Kegan 1986a). A discussion of the
implications that each model holds for social response in the promotion
of optimal identity formation is thus an important feature of each
chapter presented in this volume.
Identity as the balance between self and other

The terms ‘identity’, ‘self’, ‘ego’, ‘I’ and ‘me’ have all held very specific
meanings for various social scientists interested in addressing the issue
of self-definition. Each theorist reviewed in the pages ahead attaches a
somewhat unique meaning to the nature of the ‘I’ at particular phases
of the lifespan. However, despite usage of different concepts, a further
basic commonality seems present as we look across these develop-
mental approaches to the essence of identity. In some way, shape or
form, identity invariably gets defined (at various stages of the life cycle)
as a balance between that which is taken to be self and that considered
to be other. The means by which we differentiate ourselves from other
people in our lives as well as from our own organic functions constitutes
the very core of our experiences of personal identity. American novelist
Thomas Wolfe struggled through his life to differentiate his own
identity from that internalized image of his primary caretaker. This
intrapsychic battle was replayed in many of his adolescent and adult
relationships: ‘His popularity [as a writer] is partially due to his being
a chronicler of the human aspirations for individuation, for the estab-
lishment of a real self, as well as of the feelings of loss associated with
this search’ (Masterson 1986: Tape 4). Though using differing terms
and concepts, Erikson, Blos, Kohlberg, Loevinger and Kegan all pro-
vide descriptions of how the internal balancing and rebalancing of
boundaries between self and other produce more differentiated subjec-
tive experiences of identity as well as relationships with other people at
various life stages. Adolescence encompasses one phase of heightened
activity for most in this intrapsychic and interpersonal juggling act.
From psychodynamic beginnings, Erikson’s work was the first to
appreciate the psychosocial nature of identity with the important role
played by the community in recognizing, supporting and thus helping
to shape the adolescing ego. As a developmental theorist, he dis-
tinguishes the identity solutions of introjection during infancy and iden-
tification in childhood from the process of identity formation during
adolescence. It is during the adolescent phase of the lifespan that
Erikson sees opportunities for identity resolution through a synthesis
that incorporates yet transcends all previous identifications to produce
a new whole, based upon yet qualitatively different from that which has
gone before:
The final identity, then, as fixed at the end of adolescence, is

superordinated to any single identification with individuals of the
past: it includes all significant identifications, but it also alters
them in order to make a unique and reasonably coherent whole
of them.
(Erikson 1968: 161)
Here the new balance between self and other involves a reorganization
of the means to identity itself. That self of childhood, derived from
significant identifications with important others, must during ado-
lescence give way to a self derived from yet transcending those founda-
tions – to a new whole greater than the sum of its parts. Others now
become important not merely as potential sources of identification
but rather as independent agents, helping to recognize the ‘real me’.
Erikson, however, appreciated the importance of context to this pro-
cess. He saw identity development also as a reciprocal relationship
between individual and context, a process of recognizing and being
recognized by ‘those who count’.
Blos, more strongly than Erikson, has maintained his alliance with
classic psychodynamic theory. However, Blos’s portrayal of ado-
lescence as a second individuation process has paved the way for a new
approach to the study of adolescent individuation and identity. Blos
built upon the groundbreaking work of Margaret Mahler, who detailed
the infant separation and individuation processes. He noted that while
the successful establishment of an autonomous self in life’s earliest
years rests with the toddler’s ability to incorporate or internalize an
image of its primary caretaker, such intrapsychic organization hinders
further development during adolescence. During the second individu-
ation process, it is this very internalized parent which must be relin-
quished if development is to progress. Blos sees adolescence as a time
spent unhinging the old intrapsychic arrangement of that which has
been considered self (the parental introjects) and that taken to be other.
He finds regressive thoughts and actions to be necessary for further
development and to be common phenomena accompanying this loss of
the childhood ‘I’. A sense of heightened distinctiveness from others is
the subjective experience following successful adolescent individuation.
Now others can be recognized as agents in their own right rather than
merely as internalized orchestrators of one’s responses to life. Certain
interpersonal and contextual features associated with this process are
described in Chapter 3.
Kohlberg, unlike other theorists in the pages ahead, does not address
the formation of identity directly. Rather, he conceptualizes identity (or
in his terms, ego) as an entity which can only be approached through
specific subdomains of ego functioning. These subdomains (for
example, cognition, moral reasoning) develop alongside one another,
often exhibiting only conditional links. Thus, a certain stage of cogni-
tive development seems to be a necessary but not sufficient condition
for reasoning at a more advanced level of moral judgment. Kohlberg
has been particularly interested in the evolution of moral reasoning,
and an understanding of his developmental model does enable one to
view a particular aspect of identity in formation. Normatively over the
course of adolescence, one can see movement from moral reasoning
driven by self-interest and later by the need for social approval to moral
reasoning motivated by a desire to uphold the law for its own sake. It
is only beginning in late adolescence that one can sometimes hear a
logic based on internalized ethical principles which may transcend the
written law. Through Kohlberg’s stage sequence, one can again see an
internal developmental reorganization of self and other in the logic of
decision making on matters moral. Where self-interest and then social
approval were once necessary cornerstones of the self’s architecture,
both organizations may give way in late adolescence to a more differen-
tiated and autonomous self, the author of its moral decisions based
on a universal respect for human life. While responses to Kohlberg’s
dilemmas have been found to vary across contextual circumstances, the
chapter illustrates how such findings can still be understood as part of
an underlying, developmental process.
Loevinger views identity in a more holistic manner as that ‘master
trait of personality’. The ego, to Loevinger, is a screening device which
allows us to perceive (or misperceive) reality in such a way as to reduce
anxiety. Based on extensive psychometric studies of responses to her
projective Sentence Completion Test, Loevinger has described a series
of developmental stages in the formation of the ego or the experience
of self. Taking great care to clarify her concept of the ego as one which
is distinct from most earlier psychoanalytic usages of the term,
Loevinger proceeds to detail stages through which this master trait of
personality comes into being during infancy and develops to (or
becomes arrested at) more mature stages of functioning during late
adolescence and adulthood. In so doing, she examines common forms
of impulse control, interpersonal style, conscious preoccupations and
cognitive style at each stage. Normatively during adolescence, one can
view the shift from an impulsive organization, where self-interest is the
primary motivator, to one of conformity to dictates of the immediate
social group. A more mature state of self-awareness seems to be the
modal organization (at least within the United States) of the late
adolescent and adult ego. At this level, some degree of self-awareness
and appreciation of the multiple possibilities of situations exists.
Loevinger’s paradigm thus traces stages of self–other differentiation
during adolescence from one of self-interest or conformity to others’
attitudes and behaviors to an organization of self more distinct from
others, appreciative of individuality and capable of greater mutuality in
relationship.
Lastly, Kegan views the formation of identity as a lifelong evolution-
ary process of meaning-making. His developmental scheme draws upon
Piagetian, Kolbergian and object-relations theories to conceptualize
identity as an holistic process that subtends both cognition and affect.
Identity formation is about how that which is regarded as self (or sub-
ject) is structured, lost and then re-formed. At various stages of the
lifespan, the self is intrapsychically embedded in particular contexts
from which it is unable to gain distance. Thus, the young child is
its impulses, and only later does the self differentiate so as to have
its impulses and desires. That which is regarded as other (or object)
undergoes transformation as development proceeds to a new stage of
self–other (subject–object) balance. The young adolescent’s self is nor-
matively embedded in its own needs and interests, unable to distance
from or gain a perspective on them. Only later is this outworn self
‘thrown away’ so that that which was once subject (needs and interests)
becomes object in a new subject–object balance. When such change
occurs, the mid-adolescent can now reflect upon his or her own interests
and coordinate them with those of other people. The limitation of this
new normative mid-adolescent balance lies, however, in the self’s
embeddedness in its own interpersonal context: now one is, rather than
has, his or her relationships. It is only during late adolescence that the
self–other balance may tilt once again; if it so moves, the self comes to
have its friendships (the new object) while becoming embedded in its
institutional roles such as work (the new subject). Kegan’s construct
depicts identity development (or meaning-making) as an ongoing pro-
cess of finding, losing and creating new balances between that which
is regarded as self and that taken to be other in the social context.
Normative adolescent development encompasses a time of increased
movement in the balancing and rebalancing of subject and object.
The general aim of this volume is to understand how adolescents
navigate through life, more or less successfully, to develop a sense of
who they are and how they can best find personal satisfaction in the
adult worlds of love and work. It also aims to highlight the ways in
which context interacts with individual factors to shape individual iden-
tity trajectories. Five developmental models of the identity formation
process are presented, accompanied by critical comment, reviews of
related research, and a discussion of the implications that each theory
holds for social response. Each model is based on particular assump-
tions, focuses on specific understandings of identity, adopts particular
research methods, holds particular views about the role of context in
development, describes mechanisms for change and differing implica-
tions for social response. Einstein once noted it is the theory that
decides what we can observe. It is hoped that this theoretical overview,
however, will in no way set limits to future ways of understanding and
responding to the identity formation process of adolescence.
Further reading
Adams, G. R. and Marshall, S. (1996) ‘A developmental social psychology of
adolescence: understanding the person-in-context’, Journal of Adolescence
19: 429–442.
Baumeister, R. F. and Muraven, M. (1996) ‘Identity as adaptation to social,
cultural, and historical context’, Journal of Adolescence 19: 405–416.
Côté, J. E. and Levine, C. G. (2002) Identity Formation, Agency, and Culture: A
Social Psychological Synthesis, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Lerner, R. M. (2003) ‘Applying developmental science for youth and families:
Historical and theoretical foundations’, in R. M. Lerner, F. Jacobs, and D.
Wertleib (eds) Handbook of Applied Development Science: Promoting Positive
Child, Adolescent, and Family Development through Research, Policies, and
Programs, vol. 1, Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
2 Adolescence as
identity synthesis
Erikson’s psychosocial
approach
Siddhartha reflected deeply as he went on his way. He realized that he

was no longer a youth; he was now a man. He realized that something
had left him, like the old skin that a snake sheds. Something was no
longer in him, something that had accompanied him right through his
youth and was part of him: this was the desire to have teachers and to
listen to their teachings. He had left the last teacher he had met, even he,
the greatest and wisest teacher, the holiest, the Buddha. He had to leave
him; he could not accept his teachings.
(Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha, 1980)
In his novel, Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse movingly recounts the jour-

ney of a man in search of his own identity. The story opens in an idyllic
communal setting along a sunny and tranquil river bank (complete with
fig tree), as Siddhartha senses the first nuances of inner discontent.
Family and friends alike love and admire the handsome and supple
Siddhartha, and his destiny as a prince among Brahmins is the fate
envisaged by all for this great Brahmin’s son. For Siddhartha, however,
knowledge of such a future brings no satisfaction or peace of mind.
After a final meditation, the young man announces his intention of
joining the Samanas, a wandering group of ascetics who practice a
lifestyle in all ways contrary to the values held dear by childhood
friends and mentors. Through such action, Siddhartha’s single goal is
to let the self die, to become empty, to become something other than
himself. Despite all efforts of self-denial through pain, hunger, thirst,
and fatigue, however, Siddhartha cannot escape his own existence. After
several unsatisfying years with the Samanas, Siddhartha once more
finds new hope for peace by testing the way of the Buddha in conquer-
ing the self. After a short time it becomes clear, however, that such
efforts will also fail to bring salvation, and it is at this point that we meet
Siddhartha ruminating on his newfound learnings as he leaves the grove
of the Buddha. It seems that neither complete identification with child-
hood’s teachers nor their complete banishment from his existence help
Siddhartha to solve the riddle of the self and so structure an identity
that will see him through (or at least into) adult life. Perhaps no piece of
literature so adequately and accurately anticipates the themes central to
Erikson’s writings on identity formation during adolescence, and it is to
Siddhartha we shall later return for illumination of Erikson’s concepts.
Erik Erikson was the first psychoanalytic writer to enquire seriously
into the phenomenon of identity formation during adolescence.
His approach was based upon, but diverged in important ways from,
Freud’s biologically based psychosexual orientation to personality
development. Erikson moved beyond classic psychoanalysis with its
focus on the id and libidinal drivers of development to emphasize the
ego and its adaptive capacities in the environment. Rather than viewing
others as objects of cathexis important to intrapsychic functioning as
did Freud, Erikson saw others as interacting with and regulating the
ego to provide a context in which the self can find meaning and cohere.
Moving beyond Freud’s goal of raising human misery to mere un-
happiness, Erikson painted not only a more optimistic picture of
human capabilities, but also shifted the emphasis of psychoanalysis
from pathology to healthy functioning. Finally, Erikson recognized
that personality development did not end in adolescence but rather
continued to evolve throughout the lifespan.
Erikson the person

Erikson was born in Germany in 1902 to Danish parents. His birth was
the result of an affair his mother had following the break-up of her first
marriage. Erikson was raised by his mother and German pediatrician
stepfather, whom his mother had met when Erik was 3 years old.
Erikson did not learn of the circumstances of his parentage until
adolescence. However, a sense of being ‘different’ both as a stepson in a
reconstituted family and as a blond, blue-eyed Dane growing up in a
German Jewish community pervaded much of Erikson’s childhood.
From adolescence, the search for his biological father occupied
Erikson’s attentions throughout much of his remaining life (Friedman
1999). In late adolescence, the young Erikson was drawn to the role of
an artist, a ‘passing’ identity providing some income while still allowing
the young man a much needed psychosocial moratorium before
choosing his life’s work. Additionally, sketching gave training in the
recording of impressions, a skill vital to his later profession. (The
Adolescence as identity synthesis 17
artist’s vocational choice also made a definitive statement to his step-
father about the role in medicine the elder physician had envisaged for
his stepson.) Throughout his late adolescence, Erikson drifted from one
European city to another until his mid-twenties (Hopkins 1995). He
later responded to Robert Coles’ questioning about his youth: ‘Yes, if
ever an identity crisis was central and drawn out in somebody’s life, it
was so in mine’ (Coles 1970: 180).
It was eventually the invitation of childhood friend Peter Blos to join
the staff of a small school in Vienna which placed Erikson in a position
to meet Freud’s inner circle (Friedman 1999). In Vienna, he was invited
by Anna Freud to become a training analysand and undertake training
in child psychoanalysis. Again, not quite belonging to Freud’s com-
munity of medical rebels, Erikson’s stepson relationship to the psycho-
analytic profession did not furnish him with a more settled sense of
vocational identity until much later, when his own artistic talents could
be integrated with his psychoanalytic practice through theoretical writ-
ing – the sketching of impressions through linguistic rather than visual
form. It was there in Vienna that Erikson also married Canadian Joan
Serson, who became his intellectual partner and editor for the rest of
his life (Hopkins 1995).
Erikson and Joan left Vienna with their two young sons as Hitler
came to power in Germany, and they eventually migrated to Boston
where a psychoanalytic association had recently been founded. It was in
this social context that Erikson, one of the society’s few non-medical
members, found a professional niche as one of the area’s first practicing
child analysts (Friedman 1999). Throughout his impressive career,
Erikson accepted appointments at Yale, the University of California,
Berkeley, the Austin Riggs Center and Harvard, all without accruing a
single earned academic degree. It was in 1950 that Erikson’s theoretical
framework was adopted in total by the White House Conference on
Children, which provided a national charter for child and adolescent
development in the United States. In 1978, Harvard University awarded
Erikson an honorary doctorate and later established the Erik H. and
Joan M. Erikson Center to provide a forum for interdisciplinary studies
of the life cycle. Erikson died in 1994 following a brief illness just prior
to his ninety-second birthday.
It is not surprising that the theme of identity so central to Erikson’s
own life became central in his writings on life cycle development. Now,
with at least ten books and a collection of individual papers dedicated
to examining the nature of identity formation during adolescence and
the life cycle, Erikson’s contributions seem an appropriate starting
point for enquiries into adolescent identity development.
The nature of ego identity

What then is identity and how does it develop during adolescence?
Erikson first used the term ‘ego identity’ to describe a central disturb-
ance among some returning Second World War veterans who were
experiencing a loss of sameness and continuity in their lives:
What impressed me most was the loss in these men of a sense of

identity. They knew who they were; they had a personal identity.
But it was as if subjectively, their lives no longer hung together –
and never would again. There was a central disturbance in what I
then started to call ego identity.
(Erikson 1963: 42)
He continued by noting that it was often a decisive yet innocent

moment in the lives of these soldiers wherein the needs of a man’s
social group, those of his biological organism, and those idiosyncratic
to his own development and family history met in irreconcilable con-
flict, heralding the breakdown of personal meaning and life continuity.
Several concepts basic to Erikson’s later work emerged from the
observation of these veterans. First, identity seems to be most easily
definable through its absence or loss; it is only when one can no longer
take for granted the fabric of one’s unique existence that its foundation
threads become exposed and more clearly apparent. It is through such
loss of ego identity or its developmental failure that opportunity does
exist for understanding more normative modes of identity formation
and the means by which society can provide for optimal development.
Erikson’s clinical experience sensitized him to questions of how identity
forms and develops for the wider non-patient population.
Furthermore, the soldiers’ tales brought the tripartite nature of iden-
tity into view. Freud had left psychoanalysis focused on the role played
by biology in personality development. However, for a somewhat dis-
satisfied Erikson, ‘traditional psychoanalytic method . . . cannot quite
grasp identity because it has not developed terms to conceptualize
the environment’ (Erikson 1968: 24). While biology is important to
individual biography, so too are an individual’s life history and the
presiding cultural and historical context, argued the analyst. For one
medical officer veteran who came to Erikson’s attention, it was the
combination of lowered group morale in his unit followed by group
panic over loss of leadership (social and historical context), physical
fatigue and illness (biological state) and his lifelong denial of anger
following a traumatic childhood incident (individual life history) which
culminated in his loss of ego identity. Erikson conceptualizes and
defines identity in an interdisciplinary way; biological endowment, per-
sonal organization of experience, and cultural milieu all conspire to
give meaning, form and continuity to one’s unique existence.
Following his initial statement on identity, Erikson was persuaded to
expand and elaborate the construct. As a psychosocial phenomenon, he
saw identity rooted both within the individual as well as within the
communal culture (Erikson 1970). Subjectively, the theorist suggests
what it feels like to have a sense of identity by citing a letter from
William James to his wife:
A man’s character is discernible in the mental or moral attitude in

which, when it came upon him, he felt himself most deeply and
intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside
which speaks and says: ‘This is the real me!’
(James, cited in Erikson 1968: 199)
One knows when identity is present, in greater or lesser degree. For the
individual, identity is partly conscious and partly unconscious. It gives
one’s life a feeling of sameness and continuity, yet also a ‘quality of
unselfconscious living’, and is taken for granted by those in possession.
Identity involves conflict and has its own developmental period during
adolescence and youth, when biological endowment and intellectual
processes must eventually meet societal expectation for a suitable
display of adult functioning. Identity depends upon the past and
determines the future; rooted in childhood, it serves as a base from
which to meet later life tasks (Erikson 1970). Erikson does not elabor-
ate in similar detail on the ‘social’ side of the psychosocial partnership,
though he does stress the importance of the social context in providing
‘something to search for and . . . be true to’ (Erikson 1968: 235).
Erikson also views identity as a generational issue, pointing to the
responsibility of the parent generation for providing an ideological
framework for its youth (if only for the purpose of giving adolescents a
structure against which to rebel and forge their own values).
Identity: development and resolutions

Perhaps Erikson’s most concise account of how identity develops is to
be found in Toys and Reasons: ‘[T]he process of identity formation
depends on the interplay of what young persons at the end of childhood
have come to mean to themselves and what they now appear to mean
to those who become significant to them’ (Erikson 1977: 106). This
deceptively simple statement is based upon a number of developmental
principles basic to Erikson’s concept of identity. The theorist distin-
guishes identity formation, which generally occurs during adolescence,
from the childhood processes of introjection and identification. That
first sense of ‘I’, he suggests, emerges only through the trustful interplay
with a parental figure during infancy (Erikson 1968). It is in the experi-
ence of a safe relationship that the child comes to know itself as distinct
from its beloved developmental partner. At this point, introjection or
the incorporation of another’s image operates and prepares the way for
more mature forms of identity resolution. During childhood ‘being
like’ admired others and assuming their roles and values reflects the
mechanism of identification as the primary means by which the self is
structured. It is only when the adolescent is able to select some and
discard others of these childhood identifications in accordance with his
or her interests, talents and values that identity formation occurs. Iden-
tity formation involves a synthesis of these earlier identifications into a
new configuration, which is based on but different from the sum of its
individual parts. It is a process also dependent on social response; iden-
tity formation relies on the way society ‘identifies the young individual,
recognizing him as somebody who had to become the way he is and
who, being the way he is, is taken for granted’ (Erikson 1968: 159).
Thus, identity does not first emerge during adolescence, but rather
evolves through earlier stages of development and continues to be
reshaped throughout the life cycle.
Erikson uses the term epigenesis to describe this property of iden-
tity development as well as broader aspects of personality change.
Meaning literally ‘upon’ (epi) ‘emergence’ (genesis), epigenesis implies
that ‘one item develops on top of another in space and time’ (Evans
1967: 21–22). Suffice it to say at this point that identity formation
during adolescence emerges from what youngsters (through their
introjections and identifications) at the end of childhood come to
know as their selves. Yet it also transcends these earlier forms in the
individual’s realization and society’s recognition of personal interests
and talents.
To return now to Siddhartha and his beleaguered quest: in his jour-
ney, this Brahmin’s son tries many means by which Erikson suggests
identity resolution is possible. Through his childhood years, Siddhartha
appears successfully to have internalized and identified with his father
and the later vocational, ideological and sexual roles he is expected to
play as an up-and-coming Brahmin priest. We are told of his father’s
happiness in watching the son ‘growing up to be a great learned man, a
priest, a prince among Brahmins’ (Hesse 1980: 339). A psychosocial
foreclosure appears well on the way, whereby Siddhartha seems prepared
to step into predetermined roles in his family and culture. While
Erikson does not detail this identity solution, it has been elaborated
through empirical research which will be presented in a later section of
this chapter.
Soon, however, shadows pass across Siddhartha’s eyes and a ‘rest-
lessness of the soul’ makes its presence known as he begins to ‘feel the
seeds of discontent within’. The late adolescent’s decision to join a
group of wandering ascetics whose values present a diametric contrast
to all those of his own heritage seems to be a choice of negative identity.
Such a solution for Siddhartha illustrates the ego’s attempt to adhere to
something distinctly other than its past, to go beyond the bounds of
given experience and begin anew. Here there is no synthesis of previous
identifications to give some foundation to later identity, but rather an
effort to jettison all identifications and start the task of creating a self
completely different from its origins. Siddhartha attempts to cancel his
previous self through denial of physical needs and the self-destructive
infliction of pain. Erikson comments on such a form of negative
identity resolution:
Such vindictive choices of a negative identity represent, of course, a

desperate attempt at regaining some mastery in a situation in which
the available positive identity elements cancel each other out. The
history of such a choice reveals a set of conditions in which it is
easier for the patient to derive a sense of identity out of a total
identification with that which he is least supposed to be than to
struggle for a feeling of reality in acceptable roles which are
unattainable with his inner means.
(Erikson 1968: 176)
For some troubled adolescents, it is better to be somebody totally

other than what existed during childhood rather than struggle to
reintegrate the past into a present and future having some continuity
with one’s previous existence. There is often much relief following the
choice of a negative identity, however destructive that solution may
ultimately be.
For Siddhartha, however, that relief did not come. We are told of his
realization that complete immersion in the ‘contra-culture’ of the
Samanas’ community and later Buddhist collective fail to solve the
riddle of his existence. He departs, and it is at this point that we meet
the young man continuing his ruminations presented at the beginning
of this chapter:
The reason why I do not know anything about myself, the reason
why Siddhartha has remained alien and unknown to myself is due
to one thing, to one single thing – I was afraid of myself, I was
fleeing from myself. . . . I wished to destroy myself . . . in order to
find in the unknown innermost, the nucleus of all things. . . . But by
doing so, I lost myself on the way. . . . [Now] I will learn from
myself, be my own pupil; I will learn from myself the secret of
Siddhartha.
(Hesse 1980: 359)
At this point Siddhartha enters a moratorium that carries him in search

of different roles that would seem to allow greater possibilities for syn-
thesizing and integrating all that has gone before. Anxiety, however,
soon becomes his companion:
[A]n icy chill stole over him. Previously when in deepest meditation,
he was still his father’s son, he was still a Brahmin of high standing,
a religious man. Now he was only Siddhartha . . . he was over-
whelmed by a feeling of icy despair, but he was more firmly himself
than ever. That was the last shudder of his awakening, the last
pains of birth. Immediately he moved on again . . . no longer
homewards, no longer back to his father, no longer looking
backwards.
(Hesse 1980: 360)
Siddhartha’s ‘awakening’ or resolution to one part of his identity riddle

brings with it a new challenge for development: to achieve an identity, a
sense of self that synthesizes earlier identifications into a new whole
that is now uniquely his own.
Siddhartha’s life is a case study of the evolution of identity from
adolescence into old age. After experiencing many roles and building
various lifestyles that fit his innermost needs at the time, Siddhartha
returns in his old age to the river over which many of his earlier life
journeys had crossed and beside which he eventually finds peace.
Through many inward and external travels in adult life, Siddhartha
demonstrates how the achievement of an identity does not remain fixed,
resolved once and for all, but rather is constantly open to change
through shifting needs and circumstances:
Such a sense of identity is never gained nor maintained once

and for all. Like a good conscience, it is constantly lost and
regained, although more lasting and more economical methods of
maintenance and restoration are evolved and fortified in late
adolescence.
(Erikson 1956: 74)
An optimal sense of identity

If soma, ego and society have done their jobs, what should be present by
the end of adolescence and the beginnings of early adulthood? Subjec-
tively, there should be a sense of well-being: ‘Its most obvious concomi-
tants are a feeling of being at home in one’s body, a sense of “knowing
where one is going” and an inner assuredness of anticipated recognition
from those who count’ (Erikson 1968: 165). With its psychosocial con-
notation, optimal identity formation should show itself through com-
mitment to those work roles, values and sexual orientations that best fit
one’s own unique combination of needs and talents. It is this more
directly observable commitment feature of ego identity that has been at
the heart of most empirical attempts to address some of its properties.
Identity as a stage in the life-cycle scheme

As hinted previously, identity has a past. Erikson portrays identity as
the fifth stage in an eight-act sequence of life conflicts one encounters
along the road from birth to death in old age. While the primary focus
in this chapter is on identity, it nevertheless is important to appreciate
the contribution that both earlier and later acts make to the complete
life drama.
Erikson conceptualizes the life cycle as a series of stages, critical
periods of development which involve bipolar conflict that must be
addressed and resolved before one can proceed unhindered. According
to the epigenetic principle, each stage has ‘its time of special ascend-
ancy, until all parts have arisen to form a functional whole’ (Erikson
1968: 92). There is a proper rate and sequence of development; the child
must crawl before she can walk.
The polarity of each stage presents a crisis, a crucial turning point
where development must make a move for better or for worse as one
orients to the physical environment and social and historical context:
‘Each successive stage and crisis has a special relation to one of the
basic elements of society, and this for the simple reason that the human
life cycle and man’s institutions have evolved together’ (Erikson 1963:
250). The developmental possibilities of each stage do not demand
‘either/or’ resolutions, but rather some dynamic balance of ‘more or
less’ between the poles; hopefully that balance will favor the positive
end. Erikson describes his fifth stage, which comes to the fore during
adolescence, as that of identity versus role confusion. Here, as mentioned
earlier, the young person is faced with the psychosocial dilemma of
synthesizing yet transcending earlier identifications of childhood to
realize aptitudes in social roles, while the community in turn provides its
recognition and contribution to an individual’s sense of self. Ironically,
it may be one’s willingness to undergo times of temporary uncertainty
that gives the achievement resolution its ultimate strength. Stage resolu-
tions should not be regarded as achievement scales based only on the
more positive pole; they represent a balance between positive and nega-
tive poles that determines an individual’s characteristic mode of adapt-
ing to the environment. One does not, however, enter the life drama
during the fifth identity formation act. Identity versus role confusion
has been preceded by four earlier stages, each having a necessary place
in the unfolding chain of life-cycle tasks. All of Erikson’s eight stages
are now briefly reviewed to illustrate their relationships to the identity
crisis of adolescence.
Trust versus mistrust/hope

As the opening scene in the life-cycle production, trust versus mistrust
sets the stage for all that is to follow. It is during infancy that the
developmental crisis of trust is met, based in part on Freud’s biological
concern with early oral experience. Through the mutual regulation and
interaction between caretaker and infant, a rudimentary sense of ego
identity is born. The child comes to know itself in relation to another
and gains a sense of inner continuity, sameness and trust in itself and its
developmental partner.
In her short story, ‘The Door of Life’, Enid Bagnold recounts the
fine-tuning of responses between a mother and her 4-day-old infant
that reflect the building blocks of basic trust:
[M]other and child [were] on the rails of development with fine

movements, [caretaker] setting order into the baby’s life, creating
peace, keeping off the world, watching, reflecting, adjusting,
jockeying the untidiness of civilization into perfection, teaching
even so tiny a baby manners and endurance; to cry at the proper
time for exercise, to sleep at the proper hour.
(Bagnold 1972: 7)
This heightened sensitivity of both players to the nuances of the part-

ner’s movements illustrates the importance of mutuality to develop-
ment. The quality of the caretaker’s messages gives the infant a sense
that it is all right to be, to be oneself, and to become ‘what other people
trust one will become’ (Erikson 1963: 249).
Somewhere in between the polar extremes of trust and mistrust, most
of us find an adaptive balance; neither complete trust nor complete
mistrust of the world is ultimately beneficial. An optimal resolution to
this infant crisis will find scales tipped more firmly toward the trusting
pole, leading to hope, which in turn is the basic ingredient of later
survival. It is also through this dynamic balance that a sense of ‘I’, as
one who can hope, emerges to serve as the very rudimentary foundation
for identity in adolescence.
Autonomy versus shame and doubt/will

Following the sense of basic trust, life’s next developmental hurdle
during the second and third years is that of developing autonomy.
Again finding a biological base in Freud’s anal stage of development,
Erikson’s sense of autonomy is characterized by the child’s increasing
awareness of its self through control of bodily functions and expression
of other motor and linguistic skills (performing in concert with the
expectations of important others in the social milieu).
Holding on or letting go of body wastes is one of the child’s earliest
opportunities to exercise complete control over the outcome of events,
regardless of parental desire. Such auspicious occasions as toilet-
training episodes provide toddlers with an experience of will, something
originating from within in response to social conditions and highlight-
ing the issue that wills of developmental partners can differ. With trust
in order, it is now possible to risk one’s own will against the response
that such self-expression may bring. This ‘counterpointing of identities’
again carries the rudiments of later adolescent identity.
Newfound linguistic and locomotor skills conspire to aid the devel-
opment of autonomy during toddlerhood. By the age of two and a half
years, the child is using the personal pronoun ‘I’ (as well as the declara-
tive ‘no’) to give further evidence of will. Now possessing the motoric
status of ‘one who can walk’, one is also in a position to encounter
social response, for better or worse. The account of socialization
experiences for a young Papago Indian girl cited by Erikson illustrates
again the role the social environment plays in aiding and abetting this
developmental task:
[T]he man of the house turned to his three-year-old granddaughter

and asked her to close the door. The door was heavy and hard to
shut. The child tried, but it did not move. Several times the grand-
father repeated: ‘Yes, close the door’. No one jumped to the child’s
assistance. No one took the responsibility away from her. On the
other hand, there was no impatience, for after all the child was
small. They sat gravely waiting until the child succeeded and her
grandfather gravely thanked her. It was assumed the task would not
be asked of her unless she could perform it, and having been asked,
the responsibility was hers alone just as if she were a grown woman.
(Erikson 1963: 236)
Such an experience of personal autonomy in completing a difficult task

is met with a social response that can only convey a sense of respect for
and recognition of the child’s developing ‘I’.
Like all of Erikson’s stages, an adaptive balance between the two
extremes is necessary for optimal development. When the scale is
weighted towards shame and doubt, one retains a sense of inferiority,
of being ‘not good enough’ through all life’s later stages. As a corollary,
however, it is knowledge that one is fallible and capable of evoking a
less than favorable social response that tempers absolute autonomy
and serves to regulate the self in a social order.
Initiative versus guilt/purpose

The third act of Erikson’s life drama is met during the preschool years
and coincides with Freud’s phallic stage of development; pleasure in
infantile genitality gives rise to Erikson’s social as well as sexual sense
of being ‘on the make’ in the stage of initiative versus guilt. Now adept
at mastering such skills as playing batman on a tricycle and more com-
plicated sex roles, the preschooler possesses the ability to imagine. This
capacity, so central to early childhood play, carries with it the seeds for
initiative in the translating of thoughts to action. Only from an
autonomous position is it possible to initiate; in knowing that one is, it
is then possible to learn what one is. Issues such as what kind of person
to become and what kind of sex role to adopt now become critical
questions. From initiative grows a sense of purpose and ambition vital
to tasks of adolescence and adulthood. It is initiative that ‘sets the
direction toward the possible and the tangible which permits the
dreams of early childhood to be attached to the goals of an active adult
life’ (Erikson 1963: 258).
Locomotor skills and language continue to develop. One is now able
to move and expend energy finding out what this status of one who
walks means and of how moving can be used for purposes other than
pleasure alone to accomplish more far-reaching goals. Language
becomes a tool for communication with others in sorting out the often
complex and confusing state of world affairs, or a least those of the
preschool playground. The following conversations, recorded by Welker
(1971), illustrates not only this new linguistic function but also the
young child’s fascination with sexual differences and roles in later life:
Laura got her hair cut very short. She and Tony were on the swings.
Laura: Tony, do I look like a boy?
Tony: No.
Laura: Look at the back of my head where my hair is so short.
Tony: No, you’re a girl.
Laura: You know I’m a girl cause you saw me before I got my hair
cut.
Tony: I know you’re a girl cause you have curly hair . . .
Laurie, playing with Marian, said: ‘When I grow up, I’m going to
be a daddy.’
Marian replied, ‘You can’t. Girls grow up into ladies.’
‘Yes I can too,’ retorted Laurie, ‘Look, I’ve got big hands, and
daddies have big hands.’
(Welker 1971: 67–68)
Thus, identity in adolescence has roots in the purposeful activities of

early childhood. Out of initiative comes the ability to fantasize about
and experiment with social and sexual roles of critical importance to
adolescent and young adult life.
At this stage, however, the potential for guilt exists. A tip of the scales
toward this negative end may leave the individual immobilized in taking
future action through guilt or fear. An optimal balance would see
boundless sexual and social initiative tempered by an awareness of
the possibilities for social criticism and sanctions. Such a balance can
best be obtained by a social environment aware of its role in fostering
curiosity within the limits of cultural convention.
Industry versus inferiority/competence

According to Freud, the primary school years are marked by a shift
from libidinal energy focused on bodily zones to a time of sexual
latency; attention becomes channeled outward towards the world of
the school yard and neighborhood. In contrast to Freud’s focus on
sexual latency, Erikson views the primary school years as ones in which
the practicing of skills and the completion of tasks, anticipating those
of later adult work roles, is life’s main focus. Industry has been
described as an apprenticeship to life; feelings of competence and
achievement are the optimal results here. Thus, it is only through the
initiative of an autonomous self which trusts the social milieu that
the challenge of industry versus inferiority can be addressed. Social rec-
ognition for a job well done is the milieu’s contribution to fostering
development at this stage.
In her short story, ‘Prelude’, Katherine Mansfield illustrates an
optimal response to industry in a brief interchange between young
Kezia and her grandmother:
[S]he decided to go up to the house and ask the servant girl for an
empty match-box. She wanted to make a surprise for the grand-
mother. . . . First she would put a leaf inside with a big violet
lying on it, then she would put a very small white picotee, per-
haps, on each side of the violet, and then would sprinkle some
lavender on the top, but not to cover the heads. She often made
these surprises for the grandmother, and they were always most
successful.
‘Do you want a match, my granny?’
‘Why, yes, child, I believe a match is just what I’m looking for.’
The grandmother slowly opened the box and came upon the
picture inside.
‘Good gracious, child! How you astonished me!’
‘I can make her one every day here,’ she thought, scrambling up the
grass on her slippery shoes.
(Mansfield 1972: 90)
Such wisdom in social response can only serve to strengthen the sense
of accomplishment in making and giving experienced by this young
girl. Crucial to this sense of industry is the ‘positive identification with
those who know things and know how to do things’ (Erikson 1968: 125).
One special teacher in the lives of many gifted individuals has often been
credited as the spark which ignited outstanding later achievements
(Erikson 1968). Finding one’s special skills and talents during the phase
of industry may have long-range implications for later vocational iden-
tity. Wise parents, teachers or other important identification figures play
a critical role in fostering a sense of industry or inferiority.
Erikson (1968: 124) notes the child’s possible negative resolution of
this stage, ‘the development of an estrangement from himself and from
his tasks’. A home environment insufficiently preparing the child for
life outside its boundaries, or failure of the wider cultural milieu to
recognize and reward real accomplishments of its younger members,
may be perpetrators of inferiority. Again, healthy resolution to the
industry versus inferiority conflict would see a ratio favoring industry.
At the same time, feelings of limitless competence must be checked
by an awareness of one’s genuine limitations in order for optimal
development to occur.
Identity versus role confusion/fidelity

Moving away from Freud’s biological orientation to personality devel-
opment during puberty, Erikson saw physiological change as only one
aspect of a more pervasive adolescent dilemma: ‘But even where a per-
son can adjust sexually in a technical sense and may at least superficially
develop what Freud called genital maturity, he may still be weakened by
the identity problems of our era . . . fully developed genitality is not a
goal to be pursued in isolation’ (Erikson, cited in Evans 1967: 29).
Identity, to Erikson, incorporates yet transcends the endocrinological
revolution of puberty to include psychosocial issues. It is finding a
‘feeling of reality’ in socially approved roles.
Drawing upon resolutions to earlier stages, one must now approach
the task of identity formation. Erikson suggests fidelity is the essence of
identity. To become faithful and committed to some ideological world
view is the task of this stage; to find a cause worthy of one’s vocational
energies and reflecting one’s basic values is the stuff of which identity
crises are made. It is ultimately to affirm and be affirmed by a social
order that identity aspires.
We have already seen and described some possible ways of negoti-
ating life’s conflicts during the fifth act through Siddhartha’s quest.
Suffice it to say here that the stage of identity versus role confusion is
one of life’s critical crossroads in the transition to adult life; not only
must this stage incorporate a trustworthy ‘I’ who has evolved as an
autonomous individual capable of initiating and completing satisfying
tasks modeled by significant others, but it must also transcend such
identifications to produce an ‘I’ sensitive to its own needs and talents
and capable of chipping its own niche in the surrounding social
landscape.
In contrast to Freud, the curtain on development for Erikson does
not fall at this point. With a favorable resolution to the identity crisis
of adolescence, it is now and only now possible to proceed to the stage
of intimacy – that meeting of an ‘I’ with an ‘I’, each firm on its own
unique identity foundations. The remaining three acts of the life-cycle
production, however, involve a shift of developmental focus from ‘I’
to ‘we’.
Intimacy versus isolation/love

For Erikson, intimacy in young adulthood encompasses far more than
sexual fulfillment; in fact, sexual activity may be used in the service of
identity conflict rather than as a reflection of love. ‘Intimacy is the abil-
ity to fuse your identity with somebody else’s without fear that you’re
going to lose something yourself’ (Erikson, cited in Evans 1967: 48).
Intimacy involves the desire to commit oneself to a relationship, even
when such commitment may call for personal sacrifice or compromise.
Intimacy involves communion and can occur in a variety of forms – in
same and opposite sex friendships, in love, in sexual union and even in
relationship with oneself or one’s life commitments (Evans 1967).
To Erikson, genuine intimacy is not possible until issues of identity
are reasonably well resolved. Relationships of earlier adolescence often
serve only the purpose of self-definition rather than intimacy; another
may be used merely as a mirror to reflect a form less visible to its owner.
Relationships may also involve attempts to find one’s own identity
through merger with another – efforts which similarly preclude intim-
acy. Indeed some marriages serve such a function for those in whom
identity issues remain unresolved: ‘Many young people marry in order
to find their identity in and through another person, but this is difficult
where the very choice of partner was made to resolve severe
unconscious conflict’ (Erikson, cited in Evans 1967: 49). Ultimately,
there is only enough identity for one.
Drawing upon Martin Buber’s concepts of ‘I’ and ‘Thou’, Mousta-
kas captures the character of genuine intimacy in the following passage:
Growth of the self requires meetings between I and Thou, in which

each person recognizes the other as he is; each says what he means
and means what he says; each values and contributes to the unfold-
ing of the other without imposing or manipulating. And this
always means some degree of distance and independence. It does
not depend on one revealing to another everything that exists
within, but requires only that the person be who he is, genuinely
present.
(Moustakas 1974: 92)
Here the identities of ‘I’ and ‘Thou’ must be assured in order for such a
relationship of mature, unselfish love to occur.
Isolation is the psychosocial alternative creating conflict at this stage.
If true ‘engagement’ with another is elusive, one may ‘isolate himself
and enter, at best, only stereotyped and formalized interpersonal rela-
tions; or one may, in repeated hectic attempts and dismal failures, seek
intimacy with the most improbable partners’ (Erikson 1968: 167). Isol-
ation can occur in the context of relationship just as intimacy can exist
in the physical absence of a partner. ‘[T]here are partnerships which
amount to an isolation à deux, protecting both partners from the neces-
sity to face the next critical development – that of generativity’ (Erikson
1963: 266). An ideal balance between intimacy and isolation results
through a relationship which allows time for both withdrawal and
communion between partners. It is the recognition of one’s ultimate
aloneness which gives intimacy its base, and it is one’s capacity for
security in that aloneness which makes genuine intimacy possible.
Generativity versus stagnation/care

The next task for that ‘we’ to meet during adulthood is taking a place in
society at large and caring – for one’s offspring, productions, social
contributions and future generations. Erikson again notes the limita-
tions of Freud’s psychosexual scheme with its emphasis on genital
maturity as the epitome of development:
I would go even further than that and say that Freud, by paying so
much attention to the prepubertal impediments of the genital
encounter itself, underemphasized the procreative drive as also
important to man. I think this is a significant omission, because it
can lead to the assumption that a person graduates from psycho-
analytic treatment when he has been restored to full genitality. As
in many movies, where the story ends when lovers finally find one
another, our therapies often end when the person can consummate
sexuality in a satisfactory, mutually enriching way. This is an essen-
tial stage but I would consider generativity a further psychosexual
stage, and would postulate that its frustration results in symptoms
of self-absorption.
(Erikson, cited in Evans 1967: 52)
Erikson’s concept here does not imply that generativity can be met only
in parenting; it resides also in the desire of an autonomous ‘I’ as part of
an intimate ‘we’ to contribute to the present and future well-being of
other life cycles. Such generative individuals provide the models needed
for introjection and identification by younger members of the society.
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Siara, and Piauhy; on the south by the river St. Francisco, which
separates it from Seregipe and Bahia, and by the Carinhenha, which
divides it from Minas Geraes; on the west by the province of Goyaz;
and on the east by the ocean, with seventy leagues of coast from
the river St. Francisco to the river Goyanna.
The river Pajehu, which rises in the serra of the Cayriris, and
empties itself into the St. Francisco thirty leagues above the fall of
Paulo Affonso, divides it into two parts—eastern and western; the
latter forming an ouvidoria, which comprehends a great portion of
the eastern, the sea-coast of which is divided into three comarcas,
Northern or Olinda, Central or Recife, Southern or the Alagoas,
whose common limits are in the vicinity of Rio Una, which enters the
sea forty miles south of Cape St. Augustine.
This province lies between 7° and 15° south latitude, having a
warm climate and pure air. The lands upon the whole extent of the
sea-coast are low, with considerable portions of fruitful soil, and
although it has many rivers, which are perennial and abundant, yet
the inhabitants in many parts suffer from want of water. In the
interior of the province the face of the country is very unequal, being
in some places mountainous, and very deficient in water, and that
which is met with, besides being extremely scarce, is never pure,
being of the colour of milk, and drawn from wells where all kinds of
animals go to drink, or else from pits dug in the sand. From the
town of Penedo to the bar of Rio Grande, which travellers by the
windings of the river compute at five hundred miles, there does not
run towards the river St. Francisco a single stream in the dry season.
Mountains.—The serra of Borborema, which is the most majestic
in the Brazil, has its commencement near the sea, in the province of
Rio Grande, and, after having traversed that of Parahiba from north-
east to south-west, turns to the west, separating the western part of
Pernambuco from the preceding, and from Siara for a considerable
space. It then inclines to the north, dividing the last from the
province of Piauhy, varying frequently in altitude and name to its
termination, where it is denominated Hibiapaba, in view of the coast
between the rivers Camucim and Paranahiba. In some parts it is
rocky, in others bare and barren, but the principal part is covered
with beautiful woods, nourished by strong and fertile soils. In some
places it has two or three leagues of luxuriant herbage on its
summit.
The mountain Araripe, which is a portion of it, commands a view
of the river St. Francisco, at a distance of more than thirty leagues.
In this mountain the rivers Jaguariba and Piranhas have their origin,
and run to the north. It also gives birth to the rivers Parahiba and
Capibaribe, which flow eastward, and likewise to the Moxoto and the
Pajehu, which direct their course to the south.
About seven leagues distant from the fall of Paulo Affonso, in the
parish of Tarcaratu, is the mountain of Agua-Branca, with its
numerous branches, in great part covered with wild and luxuriant
woods. Here is a chapel of Our Lady of Conceiçao, and many
families of different shades of complexion, equally if not more
barbarous than the ancient possessors of the country.
In the vicinity of the river Pajehu, about fifteen leagues from that
which absorbs it, is the serra Negra, which is about a league long,
and proportionably wide, and covered with thick woods, that are
often violently agitated by strong winds. Near it is the site of Jacare,
where the Choco Indians lived for some time; but since they have
been subjugated, like their neighbours, there is little mention made
of them.
At a short distance from the source of the river Una, is the serra
Garanhuns. It is covered with woods, where they are introducing
plantations of cotton, Indian corn, mandioca, vegetables, and fruits.
From this mountain descend many clear streams of water, which
vanish on entering the sandy plains that encompass it below. Among
other useful plants may be remarked the terminalia, or styrax of
Linnæus, which produces the gum-resinous drug called benzoin.
The serra of Russas, two leagues long, and of small width, is
situated about sixteen leagues distant from the Recife, in the road
which leads towards the certam of the river St. Francisco.
The serra Sellada is four leagues to the south-west of Cape St.
Augustine, and little more than two from the sea; and, although of
trifling height, is the best land-mark for sailors in these latitudes.
Four leagues to the north-west of Caninde, an insignificant and
ill-situated village, on the left bank of the St. Francisco, is the serra
of Olho d’Agua, with a circuit of two leagues, and of considerable
height. From its summit is discovered a vast chain of inferior
mountains on all sides, and at a distance of about six leagues to the
west-north-west is seen a column of vapour rising from the cataract
of Paulo Affonso, similar to the smoke of a conflagration. Formerly
this mountain abounded with numerous tigers, in consequence of
the multitude of caverns within the jetting rocks and frowning crags
that compose it. Even at present they are the retreats of a
formidable species of bat, which proves very destructive to cattle.
The serra of Priaca is about eight leagues to the north-west of
the town of Penedo. That of Pao d’Assucar is within sight of the
former, and near the river St. Francisco. On the southern skirts of
the serra of Pao d’Assucar there is a lake, where bones of an
enormous size have been found; and on its northern side there is a
most terrific cavern.
The serra of Poco, situated fifteen leagues distant from the last,
towards the interior of the province, is covered with woods where
trees of the finest timber are produced, some of whose trunks exude
precious resins, and oily or balsamic liquors, while the hollow trunks
of others serve for the hives of various kinds of bees.
Comenaty is one of the largest mountains in the interior. It
abounds with extensive woods in many parts, where the Indians and
other inhabitants of the parish of Aguas Bellas have introduced large
plantations of cotton and mandioca.
The serra of Barriga is about four leagues distant from the town
of Anadia, and twenty from the sea, and is subject to frequent
thunderstorms. The occasional and loud noises from its cavities
terrify the people of the circumjacent country, and indicate that it
has minerals. On its extreme skirts was the fatal band of Africans,
called the Quilombo dos Palmares, commenced by three hundred
and forty negroes of Guinea, on the occasion of the Dutch
disembarking at Pernambuco. They were joined by many others
from the neighbouring provinces, and founded the above village,
which took the name of Palmares from the number of palm trees
which the negroes had planted around it. The village, which was
more than a league in extent, was encompassed by a square,
consisting of two orders or rows of enclosures of palisadoes, formed
of large high trunks of the strongest and most durable wood the
country afforded. At equal distances were three strong doors, each
having its platform above, and defended by two hundred men in
times of assault; the whole flanked by various bulwarks of the same
fabric as the walls. Its population amounted to twenty thousand,
one-half of whom were capable of taking up arms. They had
established an elective and monarchical form of government. The
chief was entitled Zumbe, and had his palace more distinguished
than the houses of his vassals, which were erected according to the
African mode. The most valorous and wise were always selected for
this important office. Besides the superior, they had subordinate
officers for the administration of justice, which was punctually
executed against adulterers, homicides, and thieves.
The slaves who voluntarily came and associated with them had
their liberty immediately granted, but those taken by force remained
captives. The first incurred the penalty of death if they fled and were
taken, a punishment which deserters from the latter class did not
experience. Independently of a slight covering the whole were in a
state of nudity, except the superiors, who wore such clothes for
dresses as the neighbouring people of Quilombo sold to them,
together with arms and ammunition, in exchange for provisions.
Those only who had been baptized assumed the name of Christians.
Within the square was a vast basin or tank of soft water, well
stored with fish, and a high rock, which served them for a watch-
tower, from whence they could discover the country all round to a
great extent, and could observe the approach of the enemy. The
suburbs were covered with plantations of necessary provisions, to
protect which there were various hamlets, called mocambos,
governed by veteran soldiers.
It is extraordinary that this colony gave much anxiety to the
crown, existed for the space of sixty years, and cost much labour to
an army of eight thousand men for many months to accomplish its
extinction in 1697.
Mineralogy.—Gold, amianthus, stone for water-filters, limestone
and grindstone, terra de cores, a sort of plaster for figures, also two
or three species of rude marble, and potters’ earth.
Zoology.—All the domestic animals of Spain are bred here. Goats
and sheep are less profitable than in the country in which they are
natives. The woods abound with all the species of wild animals
described in the preceding provinces, excepting the wild dog, in
place of which there is the ferret. The hedge-hog has here the name
of quandu. The guariba, a species of monkey generally of a red
colour, from the river St. Francisco towards the south, is black in this
province, and its skin on this account is more esteemed. The
tatubola, or armadillo, and the land-tortoise are numerous, as well
as the moco, in rocks and stony grounds. Rabbits are very rare. In
the open country are the emu-ostrich and the seriema. In the lakes
are the colhereira, jaburu, goose, grey and white heron, wild duck,
soco, macarico, water hen. In the woods and plains are the jacu,
mutun, zabele, enapupe, racuan, arara, parrot, the uru which is a
species of small partridge, going always in bands and upon the
ground. The bird here called rouxinol, or the nightingale, is very
different in its song and plumage from that of Europe. The araponga
pours its simple and tender song from the summit of the highest
trees. The white-winged dove always avoids strange birds, like other
species of its kind. Various sorts of kites and hawks make war upon
the other birds. The jacurutu, which is of a large size, has two great
horns of feathers, and kills the largest snakes with caution and much
dexterity in order to avoid being stung by them. In almost all the
rivers there are otters, and no lake is without the alligator.
Phytology.—The cedar, bow-wood, vinhatica, of various colours,
the yellow and dark are the most esteemed; the conduru, which is
red; barabu, male and female, more or less of a violet or purple
colour; pau santo, waved with violet; sucupira and brahuna, both of
a blackish colour. The sapucaya affords good masts of a small size,
and its towy rind is used by the caulkers. The red camacary, pau
d’alho, maçaranduba, angico, coraçao de negro, the pith or heart of
which is black and hard: there are many others of fine timber for
building. The Brazil wood comes thirty leagues from the interior of
the country; here is also the cassia, the carahiba, whose flower is
yellow and rather large, constituting delicious food for the deer. This
animal, generally feeding beneath the tree upon them, thus
becomes an easy prey to the hunter. Amongst the fruit trees and
shrubs of the woods are the ambuzo, the cajue, the araçaza, the
jabuticaba, the mandupussa, the fruit of which is yellow and grows
also round the trunk, like the preceding; the muricy; the cambuhy is
a large tree and its fruit about the size of a sour cherry, either red or
purple; the piky affords a fruit, from the stone of which is extracted
a kind of hard tallow that is used for making imitation candles; the
issicariba, which produces gum-mastick, ipecacuanha, and some
species of inferior quina, or Jesuit’s bark, to which they give this
name; the real one is to be found in the serra Cayriris. The
maçanzeira is common in some districts of this province, where it
has the improper name of murta.
The comarca of the Alagoas produces great abundance of the
best timber in the province; there the canoes are made in which the
St. Francisco is navigated. Cocoa-nut tree groves abound in the
vicinity of the sea. The mamona is carefully cultivated in some
districts, and its oil affords an article of exportation. The opuncia, or
palmatoria, is here very common; and the cochineal insect might be
cultivated with advantage.
The cotton tree and sugar cane are the principal branches of
agriculture, and their productions are the most lucrative. The desire
every where of the gain which these two articles afford, unwisely
prevents the cultivation of provisions of the first necessity in
sufficient quantity for the subsistence of the population. The flour of
mandioca is generally scarce and dear, arising in part from the lands
in the vicinity of the sea (which alone are fertile) having been given
in such liberal portions; so that at the present day they are under
the dominion of so few persons that it is calculated that for every
two hundred families there are only eight or ten proprietors, or
senhores d’engenho, and who generally permit their tenants only to
plant the cane. The jangada, a peculiar tree, and one of the most
useful in the province, has a trunk commonly straight and scarcely
ever attaining a thickness that a man cannot encompass with his
arms: it is extremely porous and light. The trunks attached, as
already described, constitute the only small craft of the country;
fishermen proceed with them to sea out of sight of land, and
travellers transport themselves, with their moveables, from one port
to another. It is necessary to drag them on the beach at the end of
each voyage to dry, in order that the wood may not decay so quickly.
The trees which produce the oil of cupahyba are met with in all the
woods; also those which produce the gum-copal, the drug benzoin,
and the sweet gum storax. The latter is here called the balsam tree;
and the honey which the bees make from the sweets of its flower
has the smell of cinnamon. Amongst other exotic trees which have
been naturalized the precious sandal tree, it is affirmed, would
prosper here almost as well as in the island of Timor, and would save
to the state many arrobas of gold annually expended in bringing it
from India.
The people of the certam catch large quantities of turtle and ring
doves with the manicoba-brava, an infusion of which is put into
vessels half buried in the sand, in those places where some little
water remains after the streams are dried up, and to which those
birds are attracted for the purpose of drinking. On taking the
infusion, if they do not immediately vomit, they cannot again take
wing, but quickly begin to tremble, and expire in a few moments.
Rivers.—The most considerable are in the western part of the
province; but we shall defer speaking of them till we come to finish
the description of the river St. Francisco, into which they discharge
themselves.
The principal ones in the eastern part of the province are the
Capibaribe, the Ipojuca, the Una, the Tracunhaen, or Goyanna, and
the Serenhen.
The Capibaribe, or river of the Capibaras,[37] has its origin in the
district of Cayriris Velhos, about fifty leagues distant from the sea.
Its source is brackish; the channel very stony, with many falls, and
navigable only for about eight miles. It is discharged by two mouths,
one within the Recife, and the other near four miles to the south, at
the arraial of Affogados, where there is a wooden bridge two
hundred and sixty paces in length. Topacora and Goyta are its
principal confluents, both of which join it by the right bank, with an
interval of four or five miles. The latter runs from a lake,
denominated Lagoa Grande.
The Ipojuca rises in the Cayriris Velhos, near the Capibaribe, and
runs through countries appropriated to the culture of cotton and
sugar, which productions have been extremely advantageous to the
agriculturist. It disembogues between Cape St. Augustine and the
island of St. Aleixo, forming a port for the small vessels by which it is
frequented.
The Serenhen, which is considerable and advantageous to the
cultivator, empties itself almost in front of the isle of St. Aleixo. One
of its largest confluents is the Ceribo, which meets it on the left
bank, not far from the sea.
The Una comes from the district of Garanhuns, with a course of
nearly forty leagues, and in the vicinity of the ocean receives on the
right the Jacuipe, which is inferior, and runs into the sea through
large woods. Both serve for the conveyance of timber, that is laden
in the port at its mouth, which is about seven leagues to the south-
west of the island of St. Aleixo.
The Goyanna, which is handsome and considerable, runs into the
sea nine miles to the north of Itamaraca, between the point of
Pedras and the Cocoa-Tree Point. It takes this name at the
confluence of the Tracunhaen, which has a considerable course, with
the Capibari-mirim, much inferior, about three leagues from the sea,
to which place smacks and small craft ascend. The water of the first
is only good at the source.
The other rivers upon the coast are the Cururippe, which
discharges itself twenty-eight miles north-east of the St. Francisco;
the St. Miguel, twenty-five miles further; the Alagoas, so called from
being the mouth of two large lakes; the St. Antonio Mirim; the St.
Antonio Grande; the Cammaragibe; the Manguape; the Rio Grande;
the Formozo; the Maracahippe, which runs into the sea between the
Serenhen and the Ipojuca; the Jaboatao, which receives near the
coast the Parapamba by the right bank, their common mouth being
designated Barra da Jangada, and is two leagues to the north of
Cape St. Augustine; the Iguarassu, which discharges itself with
considerable width five or six leagues north of Olinda, and is formed
by several small rivers, that unite about seven miles from the ocean.
All these rivers admit of the entrance of boats and small vessels. The
Moxoto, after a considerable course, empties itself eight miles above
the fall of Paulo Alfonso. It is only a current during the rainy season.
The delicate mandin fish, which proceed up whilst it is full, as soon
as the river ceases to run, and the water begins to grow warm in the
wells, pines away, and soon dies. The Pajehu is only a current whilst
the thunder showers prevail.
Promontories.—Cape St. Augustine, the only one upon the coast,
is the most famous in the new world, and the most eastern land of
South America, in the latitude 8° 20’. Here is a religious hospicio of
slippered Carmelites, dedicated to Our Lady of Nazareth, which
many captains formerly honoured with a salute on passing. It has
two forts, each of which defends a small port, where vessels of an
inferior class can come to anchor.
Islands.—Itamaraca, for a considerable time called Cosmos, is
three leagues long from north to south, and one in the widest part;
it is mountainous and inhabited. Its principal place is the parish of
Our Lady of Conceiçao, situated on the southern side, about half a
league above the mouth of the Iguarassu. This was formerly a town,
the prerogative of which was transferred to Goyanna, whose senate
goes annually to assist at the festival of its patroness. The mangoes
and grapes of this island are highly praised. There are also several
very fine salt-pits. The channel which separates it from the continent
is narrow and deep. At the northern entrance, called Catuama, there
is commodious anchorage for ships in front of the mouth of the river
Massaranduba.
The island of St. Aleixo, which is about four miles in circuit, with
portions of ground appropriated to the production of various
necessaries of life, is five leagues to the south-west of Cape St.
Augustine, and a mile distant from the continent.
Ports.—No province has so great a number of ports, though the
generality of them are only capable of receiving smacks and small
craft. The principal ones are the before-mentioned Catuama; the
Recife, which will be described jointly with the town of that name;
the Tamandare, which is the best of the whole, in the form of a bay
within the river so called. It is securely defended by a large fort, and
capable of receiving a fleet, being four and five fathoms deep at the
entrance, and six within. It lies ten leagues south-west of Cape St.
Augustine.
Jaragua and Pajussara are separated by a point which gives
name to the first, where vessels anchor in the summer. The latter
one can only be used in winter. They are two leagues north-east of
the river Alagoas, and in them people disembark to go to the town
of this name, because the river, which formerly afforded passage for
smacks, at present will not admit of canoes. It is therefore necessary
to go a league by land, and re-embark on the lake.
Cururippe is a beautiful bay, capable of receiving large ships. It is
sheltered by a reef, which breaks the fury of the sea. It has two
entrances, one to the south and the other to the north; but the
anchorage is not generally good. The bay receives the river from
which it derives the name. It is a deep and quiet stream of black
water, and navigable for canoes some leagues; the least depth is at
the mouth. Its banks are covered with mangroves, reeds, and divers
trees.
Lakes.—The considerable lakes are the Jiquiba, five leagues long
and one wide, brackish, containing fish, and is discharged twelve
miles to the north-east of Cururippe; and the Manguaba, ten leagues
long and one at the greatest width, is salt, and abounds with fish. It
is divided by a straight into two portions, one called Lagoa do Norte,
the other Lagoa do Sul, which is the largest. Its channel of discharge
is the before-mentioned river of the Alagoas, about a cannon-shot
across. Various small rivers here empty themselves. Its banks are
cultivated in parts; in others covered with mangoes. In its
neighbourhood are various sugar works, the produce of which is
transported, with cotton and other articles, in large canoes, to a
northern part of the lake, from whence they are carried in carts for
the space of three miles to the ports of Jaragua and Pajussara,
where the smacks are laden with them for the Recife, or Bahia.
The following are the towns in the three comarcas into which this
province is divided.
COMARCAS. TOWNS.
Ollinda[38]
Goyanna
Ollinda Iguarassu
Pau d’ Alho
Limoeiro.
Recife
Serenhen
Recife
St. Antonio
St. Antao.
Porto Calvo
Alagoas
Atalaya
Anadia
Alagoas
Maceyo
Porto de Pedras
Poxim
Penedo.
Goyanna, situated in low ground between the rivers Capibari-

mirim, which washes it on the north, and Tracunhaen on the south,
a little more than a league above their confluence, is a large,
populous, and flourishing town, well supplied with meat, fish, and
fruits. It has a church of Our Lady of Rozario, a hermitage of the
same name, others of Amparo, Conceiçao, and the Senhor dos
Martyrios, a house of misericordia, a convent of slippered Carmelites,
a Magdalen, two bridges, and a Juiz de Fora; there is a royal
professor of Latin. It has a fair for cattle on Thursdays. A large
quantity of cotton is exported; the principal productions of the
farmers of its extensive district, where there are above twenty
hermitages almost all with chapels. It is sixty miles north-west of
Ollinda, and fifteen from the sea. In 1810 it had four thousand four
hundred inhabitants, including its district; but the town itself now
contains near five thousand.
Seven miles south of the mouth of the river Goyanna, and near
the beach, is the parish of St. Lourenço de Tijucopabo, which is
augmenting. Thirty-five miles west of Goyanna is the parish of St.
Antonio de Tracunhaen, near to this river: its inhabitants cultivate
cotton.
Iguarassu is considerable, and the most ancient town of the
province. It is honoured with the title of loyal, and has a church
dedicated to the companion Saints of Cosme and Damiao, a house
of misericordia, a convent of Franciscans, a Magdalen, four
hermitages, and is well supplied with fish, meat, and fruits. It is five
or six leagues north of Ollinda, and two from the sea, upon the right
bank of the river that gives it the name, and which is formed by the
small rivers Ottinga, Pittanga, and Taype, that unite themselves
above. There is a bridge over it, and canoes arrive here with the
tide, but smacks remain two miles lower down. Sugar and cotton are
the articles of exportation.
Two leagues north of Iguarassu, on the Goyanna road, is the
considerable village of Pasmado, inhabited by whites, in great part
locksmiths.
Pau d’Alho, situated upon the right bank of the Capibaribe, and
thirty-five miles from the capital, was created a town in 1812, has a
church dedicated to the Holy Spirit, a hermitage of Our Lady of
Rozario, and a market every eight days.
Limoeiro, also created a town in 1812, is upon the margin of the
Capibaribe, about thirty miles above Pau d’Alho, and has a church,
dedicated to Our Lady of Expectaçao, and a market every week.
Cotton constitutes the wealth of its inhabitants. Whilst I remained at
Pernambuco, an English gentleman proceeded to this town for the
purpose of establishing a machine for dressing cotton, in which, I
understand, he has been very successful.
Serenhen, founded in 1627 with the name of Villa Formoza,
situated on an eminence upon the margin and seven miles above
the mouth of the river from which it borrows the name, is small, and
has a church, dedicated to Our Lady of Conceiçao, two hermitages,
and a convent of Franciscans. Its environs are remarkable for
fertility, abounding with water and rich plantations of cane.
St. Antonio, so called after the patron of its church, is nine miles
north-west of Cape St. Augustin, near the margin of the Parapamba,
and has two hermitages, one of St. Braz, the other of Our Lady of
Rozario. It was erected into a town in 1812.
St. Antao, situated near the small river Tapacora, and created a
town in 1812, has a church dedicated to the same saint, and two
chapels of Rozario and Livramento, and a market every week. It
produces much cotton.
Amongst other places and considerable parishes in this comarca,
is to be remarked the Ipojuca, upon the margin of the river from
which it derives its name, two leagues distant from the sea, with a
church of St. Miguel, and a convent of Franciscans.
Muribeca, with a church of Nossa Senhora of Rozario, a
hermitage of the same name, and another of Livramento, is situated
between the Recife and Cape St. Augustin, about three miles from
the sea. Sugar is the produce of both these places.
Porto Calvo, a middling town with some commerce, and a church
of Our Lady of Aprezentaçao, is situated upon the margin of the
river, from which it takes the name, and twenty miles from the sea.
Bom Successo was its first name; to its haven formerly smacks
arrived with the tide. It is the native place of the mulatto Calabar,
who, passing over to the Dutch in 1632, was to them a great
acquisition, and to the Pernambucans a great injury; until he was
delivered to the latter, as a reward for their services, in order that he
might receive the chastisement due to his perfidy. At the taking of
this town, a nephew of the Dutch general, Count Nassau lost his life,
and the celebrated Preto Henrique Dias part of an arm. The latter
afterwards distinguished himself in the battle of the mountains of
Gararappes.
Alagoas, so called from having its site upon a southern portion of
the lake Manguaba, created with the name of Magdalen, is
considerable, head of the comarca of its name, and the ordinary
residence of the ouvidor, who is also inspector of the woods of the
royal marine. It has a church of Nossa Senhora of Conceiçao, a
convent of Franciscans, another of slippered Carmelites, two orders
of devout women, three chapels, with the titles of Amparo, Rozario,
and Bom Fim, and a royal professorship of Latin. At all times it is
well supplied with fish; and abounds in the jaca and orange tree. In
the beginning of last century was exported from the district of this
town, two thousand five hundred rolls of tobacco, of eight arrobas
each, and of such good quality, that it was bought at fifty per cent.
dearer than the same article from Bahia. Sugar is at the present day
the riches of its inhabitants. A custom-house has been recently
established within its jurisdiction, in consequence of the considerable
increase in the commerce of this comarca.
Atalaya, six leagues distant from the preceding place, three by
water, and the rest by land, is in a fertile and wholesome country,
possessing excellent water, and having a church of Nossa Senhora
das Brotas. Its neighbourhood abounds with ipecacuanha, and
cotton is cultivated with the common provisions of the country. The
number of its inhabitants, including those of its district, amount to
nearly two thousand; part of them are Caboclos,[39] white, and with
more regular features than any other known tribe of Indians.
Anadia, a middling sized town, with a church of the Lady of Piety,
is fourteen leagues from Alagoas. Its inhabitants are Indians,
Europeans, whites of the country, and Mestiços, in number about ten
thousand, including those of the district; almost all are cultivators or
purchasers of cotton, its principal produce. By the same law, of 15th
December, 1815, which gave to the town of Penedo a Juiz de Fora,
were created the towns of Maceyo and Porto de Pedras.
Maceyo is a dismemberment of the Alagoas, having a district of
more than seven leagues of coast, computing from the river Alagoas
to the St. Antonio Grande. In this interval the following rivers run
into the sea:—The Doce, which is short, and comes from a small
lake; the Paratiji, the St. Antonio Mirim, and the Paripueira, which
receives the Cabuçu on the right, near its mouth. Maceyo is
becoming a place of some commerce, and will be the emporium of
the trade of the comarca of Alagoas. One English establishment
already exists here, and shipments are made direct from hence to
Great Britain. An European first settling in any of the towns of Brazil,
and particularly in places of this class, makes a sacrifice of all the
comforts common to well regulated society.
Porto de Pedras is a dismemberment of Porto Calvo; its district
embraces nearly nine leagues of coast, occupying the interval from
the aforesaid river St. Antonio Grande to the Manguape. The
Cumuriji and the Tatuamuhy are the principal rivers that empty
themselves upon its shores. The two last towns have each two
ordinary judges, and one of orphans; three veradores, or species of
aldermen, a procurador of the council, a treasurer, two clerks of the
market, an alcaide, with a scrivener of his office, two public
scriveners, judicial and notarial, the first of which holds that office in
the council, also in the customs, and is market clerk; the second also
belongs to the office of scrivener of the orphans.
Poxim, a small town upon the margin of the river of the same
name, which enters the sea three leagues to the north-east of
Cururippe, has a large bridge, and a church dedicated to Our Lady of
Madre de Deos. It is two miles from the ocean, is well supplied with
fish, and has in its district the new and yet small aldeia of Our Lady
of Conceiçao, so called after the patroness of the chapel which
ornaments it; and where upon festival days are assembled six
hundred families, dispersed around its neighbourhood. It is situated
near the river Cururippe, four miles from the sea; and its good port,
where at present is only laden some timber and oil of the mamona,
with the fertility of the interior territory, will contribute to render this
a considerable place at some future day. The land in the proximity of
the shore is sandy, and well adapted to the cajue-nut tree, which, in
a short time grows to a large size, and its fruit would furnish a
branch of commerce.
Penedo, a considerable, populous, and commercial town, is
situated partly in a plain along the bank of the river St. Francisco,
and occasionally suffering by its inundations, and partly upon a
height at the extremity of a range, which is the first elevated land
met with on the northern margin, on ascending this river. Besides
the church dedicated to Nossa Senhora of Rozario, there is a
hermitage with the same title; another of the Lady of Corrente;
others of St. Gonçalo d’Amarante, St. Gonçalo Garcia, and a convent
of Franciscans, whose ill appropriated grounds occupy a situation the
best suited for the improvement of the povoaçao. It has a royal Latin
master, and a good house for the ouvidor. The houses were, till
lately, miserable buildings of wood; there are now many of stone,
with two or three stories, having portals of a species of grindstone.
The river is here near a mile in width, and the highest tide is three
feet. The greatest height of the river, that can be remembered,
reached twenty feet. It is about twenty-five miles from hence to the
mouth of the river. The confessional roll, which is a tolerably correct
one, estimates the population at eleven thousand five hundred and
four, including that of the district. By a law of the 15th of December,
1805, a Juiz de Fora was granted to this town.
About twenty-five miles higher up, on the margin of the St.
Francisco, in a delightful situation, is the parish of Collegio, whose
dwellers only amount to ninety families, and are mostly Indians, of
three different nations. The Acconans who lived in the district of
Logoa Comprida, a few miles higher up the river: the Carapotos,
who inhabited the serra of Cuminaty: and the Cayriris, who dwelt in
the vicinity of the serra which takes from them its name. The main
part of this colony wander about when not occupied in fishing,
according to the custom of their ancestors, through a country six
miles along the river, and three broad, which was given to them for
the purposes of agriculture. The wives of these lazy poltroons work
daily in making earthenware, seated on the ground. They begin to
make an earthen vessel by working the clay on a banana leaf, placed
upon their knees; afterwards it is put upon a large dish, with
pulverized ashes, when it receives the form and last finish. Without
any assistance from the men, they procure and work up the clay,
proceed to fetch the wood in order to set up large fires every
Saturday night for hardening the vessels made during the week. The
church was a Jesuitical chapel, which the district already possessed.
In this comarca is the considerable arraial of St. Miguel, upon the
margin and seven leagues above the mouth of the river of the same
name. It has a church of Nossa Senhora of O, whose parishioners
amount to fifteen hundred, the main part dispersed.
The western portion of the province is much more extensive than
the preceding, but is very thinly inhabited, being a sterile and
parched up country, without other rains than those afforded by
thunder showers. In all parts, however, are met with portions of
ground more or less fertile, which would produce mandioca, Indian
corn, feijao, hortulans, cottons, fruits, and the sugar cane. Cattle are
generally bred in this vast district, and game abounds in great
variety. It was included in the jurisdiction of the ouvidor of Jacobina
until 1810, when it became a comarca, receiving the interior portion
of that of Recife. It is at present called the ouvidorship of the certam
of Pernambuco, the magistrate not having chosen the town for its
head, by which it ought to be designated. Cattle, hides, cotton, salt,
and gold, are the articles of its exportation.
Rivers.—The Rio Grande and the Correntes are the only
considerable rivers.
The river St. Francisco, whose description we left off at the
confluence of the Carinhenha, only receives from thence to its
entrance into the ocean, five streams of any importance, namely, the
Rans, the Parimirim, the Verde, on the right, the Correntes, one
hundred miles below the first, and the Rio Grande, one hundred and
forty lower on the left, continuing from thence northward, with many
small windings, being of considerable width, and having many
islands and some currents which do not impede navigation. Its
margins are flat, and in some parts so low, that at the inundations,
they are submerged for more than seven miles. Below the
confluence of Rio Grande, its course bends towards the east, and
then to the east-south-east, preserving the same width for a long
way, to the aldeia of Vargem Redonda, where the navigation
terminates from above, and the lateral lands begin to rise. Its
channel gradually becomes narrower, and the current is rapidly
impelled between blue and black rocks, to the small aldeia of
Caninde, (the boundary of the navigation from the ocean,) which is
seventy miles below the other. In this interval there are various large
falls, of which the most interesting and famous is that of Paulo
Affonso. Between these falls canoes navigate during the summer
season. Through Caninde it continues to run between stony banks,
thinly covered with soil and an impoverished vegetation, being one
hundred fathoms in height, the width of the river not exceeding a
sling’s throw for the distance of ten miles, to the mouth of the
Jacare, where its elevated and rugged banks terminate. Its bed in
this part is overspread with cleft reefs, appearing like the relics of a
majestic sluice or dock.
Three leagues below is the small island of Ferro, where the
margins begin to diminish in elevation, and the river to augment in
width, exhibiting crowns of white sand, the resort of the ash-
coloured and white heron, and where myriads of black diving birds
assemble; forming themselves like a net, they encircle the fish in
shoal places, not infested by the dreaded piranha fish. Here the sea-
mew, and other aquatic birds, make their nests in small holes, their
young being hatched by the heat of the sun.
Six leagues below the island of Ferro, is that of Oiro, also small,
high, and rocky, crowned with a hermitage of Nossa Senhora of
Prazeres. These are the only islands met with in the space of one
hundred miles from Caninde to the town of Penedo, where the small
range of hills that borders the left bank of the river terminates. Two
miles below Villa Nova, the elevation of the right margin also has its
bounds, and the river begins to divide its course, forming a great
number of islands, generally low, and abounding with woods, giving
them an agreeable aspect. They possess portions of fertile soil,
where some rice, maize, mandioca, sugar, and hortulans, are
cultivated. Some are sandy, others are composed of grey clay, with a
bed of black above, about a foot in depth and above this another, of
yellow earth, from three to four spans in thickness. The whole are
submerged at the period of the overflowings of this great river. The
cassia tree is here numerous, and extremely beautiful while
blooming with its rosy flowers. It affords a sort of husky fruit, two
spans in length, and of proportionable thickness, and abounds on
both margins of the river for about thirty-five miles above the town
of Penedo. This river, so deep in the interior of the continent,
disembogues by two mouths of very unequal size; the principal one
is on the north, being near two miles wide, with so little depth that
the smacks can enter it only at high water, and there wait for the full
tides to get out. The navigation from the falls, upwards, is
performed in barks and ajojos, which are two or more canoes
moored together with cross pieces of timber above. All produce
descending the river below the falls is disembarked at Vargem
Redonda, a district of the parish and julgado of Tacaratu, and
transmitted on oxen to the port of Caninde, or Piranhas, which is
two miles lower down. The navigation from hence to Penedo, is
solely by the ajojos, and upwards always with a sail. The wind is
favourable from eight o’clock of the day to the following morning’s
dawn, but not without variation according to the age of the moon
and the state of the weather; always increasing at evening, and
frequently becoming quite calm before midnight. These craft
descend always with a strong current, whilst there is no wind to
produce an agitation of the water. When the breeze is high the
current diminishes, and the river rises above a span. Fish is more
abundant above the falls, which difference, the oldest men say
originated in the extirpating system of fishing with what are called
tapagens, a mode of enclosing them, and which was unjustly
countenanced by the chief magistrates, who drew from this abuse
considerable revenues, which disappeared without leaving to the
public one signal of its expenditure. The most valuable fish of this
river are the sorubin, which grows to the size of a man; the mandin,
four feet in length, and proportionably thick, with large beards; the
pira, two feet long; and the piranha, which is short and thick, with
very sharp teeth, and fatal to all living creatures that come within its
reach. None of these fish have scales. The camurin, with a white
stripe on both sides; and the camurupin, are both thick and scaly.
The dogs, as if by a natural instinct, do not approach the waters
that are muddy, but drink only at those parts where there is a
current, from an innate dread of the piranhas, which lurk about with
destructive intent in the dead waters.
The Correntes, which has a course of about one hundred and
forty miles, issues from a lake, and runs first under the name of
Formozo, receiving another river of the same name, and afterwards
the Eguas, Guara, and Arrojado. It affords navigation for a
considerable space, and disembogues into the St. Francisco ten
miles below the chapel of Bom Jesus da Lappa. All the branches
mentioned issue from the skirts or proximity of the serra of Paranan.
Some run through auriferous countries, where mining has originated
only a few years, and which has been the occasion of founding in
the vicinity of the river Eguas a chapel of Our Lady of Glory, whose
parish contained six hundred and eighty-four families, with one
thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight adults, in the year 1809;
many being breeders of cattle, others agriculturists.
The Rio Grande, whose original name is not known, and for
which the present one was substituted, in consequence of the
ridiculous and prevailing custom in the Brazil of designating many
large rivers, of various districts, by the term of Rio Grande, (Large
River,) thereby creating a confusion of names, has fifty leagues of
course, and originates in the serra of Paranan, near the register of
St. Domingos, about five leagues from the source of the Guara, a
branch of the Correntes. After flowing a considerable way, the
Mosquito joins it, and five leagues lower the Femeas, which rises
fifteen miles from Serra Tabatinga; twelve miles further it is entered
by the Ondas, which originates eight miles from the preceding, and
nearer the Sobrado, an arm of the Tucantines, and runs rapidly
through a gold and diamond country. Fifteen miles below, it receives
the Branco, navigable to the situation of Tres Barras, so called in
consequence of the union with it of the Riachao and the Janeiro,
which enter in front of each other; seventy miles lower also on the
left, the Preto joins, which is one of its largest tributaries, and rises
in the skirts of the Serra Figuras, which is a continuation of that of
Mangabeiro, from whence issue the other branches mentioned,
excepting the Riachao. Its first name is the river of Doirados, and its
current of clear water is rapidly impelled through a winding bed,
edged with steep margins. It passes near the village of Formoza,
which has a hermitage of Senhor do Bom Fim, and by the parish of
St. Ritta, which is forty miles below the other, and the same distance
above the mouth of the river. The Rio Grande, which enters the St.
Francisco fifty miles below the confluence of the Preto, is navigable
to the mouth of the Ondas, and without falls to the Branco, passes
the parish of St. Anna de Campo Largo, which is thirty-five miles
above the embouchure of the Preto; it is well stored with the
sorubin, crumatan, large doirados, the piranha, piau, martrinchan,
and other sorts of fish. Its water has a very different colour from the
river which receives it, and remains unchanged for a considerable
distance after entering the St. Francisco.
The towns of this ouvidoria are,
Barra do Rio Grande
Santa Maria
Flores
Pilao Arcado
Assumpçao
Symbres.
The town of Barra do Rio Grande is at the northern angle of the

confluent which affords it the name, is in a state of mediocrity, well
supplied with meat and fish, and has some commerce. The church is
dedicated to St. Francisco das Chagas; and the number of its
inhabitants is included in one thousand and thirty-six families. The
passage of the St. Francisco, here a mile wide, is much frequented.
Pilao Arcado, created a town in 1810, is one hundred miles below
the preceding, and is well situated near a small hill upon the margin
of the St. Francisco, its only resource for water, and whose greatest
inundations always visit it with some injury. The church, dedicated to
St. Antonio, is new, and solidly built with bricks and lime. The
houses are generally earth and wood, and many of them covered
with straw. It has three hundred families, which are increasing, and,
with those of its vast district, comprise five thousand inhabitants,
who cultivate mandioca, maize, vegetables, good melons, and water-
melons, upon the margins of the river. The land around it is
generally wild and sterile, and alone appropriated to the breeding of
cattle, which are subject to the horrible mortality, produced by
frequent droughts. There are a great many small lakes, at various
distances from the river, all more or less brackish, and upon whose
margins the salt, formed by the ardent heat of the sun, appears like
hoarfrost. The water of these lakes (and even soft water) filtered
through a contiguous earth in wooden vessels, or leather finely
perforated, and exposed on boards to the weather, in eight days of
heat crystallizes, becoming salt as white as marine salt. Although in
lands which have proprietors, they are, like auriferous soils, reputed
common to all those who wish to benefit by them, and are a great
resource for the poor, almost all the salt here produced is
transmitted to the centre of Minas Geraes.
Villa Real de Santa Maria, situated upon an island three miles
long, and a great distance below the preceding, has the aspect of an
aldeia, with one hundred and sixty families, chiefly Indians, who are
hunters, fishermen, and agriculturists, and are exempt from tribute.
Their wives spin and weave cotton, and work in the manufactory of
earthenware, of which a considerable portion is exported.
The town of N. Senhora d’Assumpçao takes the name from the
patroness of its church. The inhabitants, comprising one hundred
and fifty-four families, are all Indians; they fish, hunt, and cultivate
mandioca, maize, water-melons, hortulans, and cotton. It is at the
western extremity of an island eighteen miles long, and the same
distance below the preceding town. In front of this island is the
middling arraial and julgado of Quebrobo, with a church of
Conceiçao, whose parishioners, about eighteen hundred and twenty-
seven families of all complexions, are mostly dispersed over its vast
district. Cotton and cattle are their productions.
Flores, erected into a town in the year 1810, is yet small and in
the vicinity of the river Pajehu. A filial chapel of the parish of
Quebrobo serves it for a church. The inhabitants draw their
subsistence from the breeding of cattle, and the culture of cotton.
Symbres, formerly Ororoba, is a small town of Chucuru Indians,
with some whites and mesticos, cultivators of cotton and the
provisions of the country. The wives of the first make earthenware
with considerable art, and spin and weave cotton. They utter great
lamentations when their husbands do not bring home game from the
woods. The church is dedicated to the Lady of the Mountain; and its
population consists of four hundred and eighty families.
The considerable arraial, julgado, and parish of St. Antonio, in
the district of Garanhuns, bordering upon the preceding, is of this
comarca, having been, with the latter one, dismembered from that
of the Recife. Its people grow cotton.
In this ouvidorship is also the parish of St. Anna do Sacramento
do Angical, dismembered from that of Campo Largo, from which it is
distant thirty miles, and ten from the margin of the Rio Grande.
Having concluded the description of the province, we will now
proceed to a consideration of its capital, commonly called
Pernambuco, (which name is a corruption of Paranabuco, by which
the Cahetes designated the port, where at the present day the
smallest class of vessels anchor,) and is understood to comprehend
two distinct places, the city of Ollinda and the town of Recife, (so
called from the reef in front of it,) with an interval of a league,
communicating by a narrow sand-bank from north to south, also by
an arm of the sea that enters the small river Biberibe, which runs
along the said sand-bank from one place to the other, and likewise
by a road on the main land, at no great distance from the western
margin of the same river.
Recife, which is the official designation of the capital, the
government documents being so signed, is large, populous, and
commercial, with tolerable houses, handsome churches, a convent of
priests of the congregation of Oratorio, another of Franciscans, a
third of slippered Carmelites, an alms and entertaining house of
Terra Santa, another of Italian Barbonios, a recolhimento of women,
an episcopal palace, and an hospital of Lazarettos. The Jesuits had a
college here, which now constitutes the palace of the governors.
This town is divided into three portions, or districts, by the river
Capibaribe, namely, Recife, St. Antonio, and Boavista. Each of these
forms a separate parish, and they communicate by two bridges; that
of Boavista, which is chiefly of wood, and paved, is three hundred
and twenty paces long; that of St. Antonio, two hundred and ninety
paces across, was in great part of stone, but having given way, the
remainder is imperfectly supplied with wood, not admitting of the
passage of a carriage, and has been allowed to remain for a
considerable time in this condition, so disreputable to the town. At
each end it has a stone arch of rather an elegant construction,
above which there are small chapels, niches, and saints, where mass
is celebrated. In the street, fronting the niches with saints, many of
the inhabitants prostrate themselves, at dusk, for some time in a
posture of devotion. The bridges are flat and not many feet above
the level of the sea.
The first part, or the Recife, occupies a peninsula, and is the
emporium of the town’s commerce, the stores of the merchants
being situated in it. The tongue of land, or sand-bank before
mentioned, which extends itself from Ollinda to the south between
the sea and the river Biberibe, terminates here. It is the site of the
custom-house, which of itself is an indifferent edifice. The Rua das
Cruzes is the best street, and although short is wide and neat; the
others are mostly paved, but are narrow and inelegant. Its church,
which is handsome, and commonly designated Corpo Santo, has for
its nominal patron St. Pedro Gonsalvez.
The second portion of the town, called St. Antonio, occupies
another peninsula, which is the northern extremity of the island,
formed by two arms of the Capibaribe. It was first planted with
cocoa-nut trees by Prince Nassau, the Dutch governor, who erected
Fribourg House for his own residence, and founded the town of
Mauritius upon it. It has better streets than the Recife, although
generally sandy, and not paved, with high footways laid with bricks.
Here is a small square, surrounded with neat houses, having only a
ground floor, with a piazza to the interior front, and may be
denominated a species of bazar, consisting solely of shops, where a
variety of articles are sold. The mother church is dedicated to SS.
Sacramento. The treasury and the governor’s palace are situated
here. The latter is not the residence of the governor, but contains
various public offices, and is used for a sort of levee, held upon
occasions of the birthday of any of the royal family.
The third part of the town, called Boavista, is the only portion
susceptible of any considerable increase, being situated on the
continent. It has advanced in magnitude with the others, but is
destitute of regularity, which may be attributed to the negligence of
the senate in not having marked out the streets in right lines at its
commencement. Its church is also dedicated to SS. Sacramento.
Here also the Dutch governor built the first house, which he called
Boavista, and, being a Portuguese name, the place has retained it.
These three portions, running in a line from east to west, form this
large and flourishing town, which, besides the governor, has an
ouvidor, a port admiral, a Juiz de Fora, each of them having various
inspections, and three royal professors of Latin, one of philosophy,
and another of eloquence and poetry. The usual junta, or council da
fazenda real, to decide upon all matters relative to the province, is
composed of the governor, the ouvidor, the Juiz de Fora, the
attorney-general, the port admiral, the chief of the treasury, and the
judge or comptroller of the custom-house, who hold their sittings at
the treasury. The suburbs are an extensive plain, with handsome
cocoa-nut tree groves, interspersed with sitios, or country-houses.
The inhabitants drink the water principally of the Biberibe, collected
into a reservoir at Ollinda, formed by a sort of barrier, denominated
a varadoiro, which impedes the further advance of the tide, and
accumulates the fresh water above. This bulwark, which also serves
as a bridge or passage over the river to Ollinda, is in part covered by
a handsome archway, below which the water passes through circular
spouts, and at the other parts by larger and square channels;
presenting altogether twenty-four mouths, from whence the water
issues in spray, forming many pleasing cascades. From hence it is
conveyed in covered canoes for the supply of the Recife. The water
of the Capibaribe is also brought in canoes from Monteiro.
The port of Recife, which is not deep enough for vessels of a
large class, is amongst the most wonderful works of nature. A recife,
or chain of reef, which extends itself from the entrance of Bahia to
Cape St. Roque, parallel with and at no great distance from the
shore, in no part appears so much like an operation of human art as
here. It is prolonged for the space of a league in a direct line with
and about two hundred yards from the beach, having the aspect of a
large flat wall, being always above the level of the sea, and at low
water six feet is discovered. This reef, which is perpendicular on the
land side, and gradually declining on the other, here suddenly
disappears opposite the most northern part of the Recife, having on
its extremity the fort of Picao, and forming a fine harbour, which
must have been the sole inducement for the foundation of the
capital in this situation. Vessels entering the port navigate as near as
possible to the internal side of the reef, where they require much
depth till they arrive at the most commodious place of anchorage.
The occasionally agitated ocean here finds its bounds, and dashes in
tumultuous and angry waves against the reef, the foaming spray not
disturbing the smooth water within, but affording a delightfully
cooling freshness, as well as an interesting spectacle, to the houses
situated upon the beach, and principally occupied in stores by the
merchants. Large ships anchor to the north of the fort of Picao, in a
bay without shelter, fronting the forts of Brun and Buraco, situated
upon the before-mentioned sand-bank. The fort of Brun, which the
Dutch commenced on the 25th of June, 1631, and gave it the name
of a maternal relative of their General Theodore, had for some time
among the Pernambucanans the appellation of Perreril.
This place, while yet of little consequence, was taken by the
Dutch in 1630, who retained it for twenty-four years, and did more
for it in public works during that time, as was candidly admitted to
me by a Portuguese gentleman holding a public situation here, than
has ever been done since. Among the monuments which attest the
spirit of improvement that marked the Dutch possession of this part
of the Brazil, there is (or was a few years ago) a stone of European
marble bearing the following inscription:
Op Gebouwt
onder
D’Hooge Regeringe
van
Præsidt en Raden,
Anno MDCLII.[40]
This stone was seen by several of the English merchants within
the last three years at the door of the church of Corpo Santo, among
the masonry work destined for the completion of this fine edifice;
but it certainly is not introduced into the walls of the building, nor
could I discover any trace of it.
The before-mentioned forts, and that of Cinco Pontas, at the
southern extremity of St. Antonio, are the principal ones that defend
the place; the two first are in good order.
A league to the south of Recife, near the southern arm of the
Capibaribe, is the arraial of Affogadas, which is increasing, and is
ornamented with three hermitages, of Nossa Senhora of Paz, of
Rozario, and of St. Miguel. There is here a wooden bridge
communicating with St. Antonio.
The city of Ollinda, which, as has been observed, constitutes a
part of Pernambuco, was burnt by the Dutch in 1631, and is
beautifully situated upon a cluster of eminences, which are the
commencement of a small cordillera, that extends itself towards the
interior of the continent. It was in former times rich, flourishing, and
powerful, and was erected into an episcopal city in the year 1676,
but continued to fall into decay, and is at present poor and thinly
inhabited, owing to the vicinity of the town of Recife, which has
deprived it of all its commerce. It is, however, a fine retreat for the
studious, convalescent, or misanthropical, who seek retirement from
the tumult and bustle of the world. It has a house of misericordia,
with its hospital, a recolhimento, or Magdalen house, a convent of
Franciscans, one of unslippered Carmelites, another of slippered
Carmelites, and a fourth of Benedictines; a palace in which the
governors in former times were obliged to reside six months in the
year; an episcopal palace, finely situated, but much deteriorated,
being unoccupied in consequence of the death of the bishop; a
seminary in the ex-Jesuitical college, with schools, and professors of
Greek, Latin, French, geography, rhetoric, universal history,
philosophy, drawing, ecclesiastical history, dogmatical and moral
theology, a great number of hermitages, and a garden of trees and
exotic plants, chiefly Asiatic, from whence the farmers can transplant
them into their own grounds. It has also the bread-fruit tree and
Otaheitan cane, and occupies an advantageous situation, but is not
kept in good order. This city is divided into two parishes, one of
them being of the cathedral, which is a magnificent edifice, with
three naves, dedicated to St. Salvador, and contains eight hundred
and eighty houses; the other has for parochial the church of St.
Pedro Martin, and comprises three hundred and fifteen houses.
The senate is rich; almost all the houses pay to it a testoon
(three hundred reas) of tax for each span of front. Almost all have
large gardens, but generally of little or no utility. The ground is
appropriated to the cultivation of fruitful trees, of which mangoes
are the principal.
The last donatory of this province affirmed that Ollinda, when it
was burned, had two thousand five hundred houses, which were
estimated to contain twenty-five thousand inhabitants.
The decay of Ollinda was considered by many of its inhabitants
as a punishment for the pride of its rich and leading persons, whose
libertinism had arrived at such a pitch, that an orator preaching on a
festival day in one of the parish churches, and energetically
declaiming against the vices prevailing in the country, some of the
principal people commanded him to be silent, and dragged him with
violence from the pulpit, without the auxiliary priests being able to
prevent the outrage.
The convents, which are handsome and well-built, occupy the
finest situations in Ollinda, generally upon the acclivity or summits of
the eminences, from whence the views are interesting. Some of
these religious establishments have now but few friars, and one of
them was occupied by a military detachment. The walls surrounding
the grounds of several, I observed, were broken down in many
parts, and in a state of dilapidation; and the enclosures, which would
have formed fine pleasure grounds, were barren, unplanted, and
quite neglected.
A MATUTO RETURNING FROM PERNAMBUCO.

On proceeding from hence by the sand-bank to the Recife, I was
suddenly startled at the appearance of a human skull and bones,
near a pillar or beacon situated between the two forts. Considerably
impressed by so unexpected a sight, and moving slowly forward with
such feelings as it was calculated to excite, not having any other
idea but that they were the remains of some murdered person, I
found myself in the midst of human bones, over-spreading the
summit of the sand-bank. I now began to surmise that it was the
cemetery of the blacks, which was confirmed on my arrival at the
Recife. The dead bodies of the negroes are wrapped up in a piece of
coarse cotton cloth, and being thinly covered with sand is the reason
of their remains soon becoming thus indecently exposed. I

Identity in Adolescence The Balance Between Self and Other Adolescence and Society 3rd Edition Jane Kroger

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Identity in Adolescence The Balance Between

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Jane Kroger is Professor of Psychology, University of Tromsø, Norway.

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Preface to the third edition xiii

1 Adolescence and the problem of identity:

2 Adolescence as identity synthesis: Erikson’s

4 Identity through a cognitive-developmental lens:

6 Identity as meaning-making: Kegan’s constructive-

7 Towards integration and conclusions 190

In an age of contextual, narrative, and post-modern inﬂuences in

When and how does [one] develop a sense of ‘I’?

F. Jasmine (alias Frankie) Addams’s ruminations address a question

Historical approaches to adolescent identity

Socio-cultural approaches to adolescent identity

Frankie is ‘caught’ by her social class and ethnicity as well as the

1 There are factors from numerous, qualitatively distinct levels of

‘In short, in developmental contextualism the person-context relation

I feel I still can’t answer the adolescent thing. As a Samoan born, I

Developmental approaches to adolescent identity

The developmental approach detailed

Identity as the balance between self and other

The ﬁnal identity, then, as ﬁxed at the end of adolescence, is

Siddhartha reﬂected deeply as he went on his way. He realized that he

In his novel, Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse movingly recounts the jour-

Erikson the person

The nature of ego identity

What impressed me most was the loss in these men of a sense of

He continued by noting that it was often a decisive yet innocent

A man’s character is discernible in the mental or moral attitude in

Identity: development and resolutions

Such vindictive choices of a negative identity represent, of course, a

For some troubled adolescents, it is better to be somebody totally

At this point Siddhartha enters a moratorium that carries him in search

Siddhartha’s ‘awakening’ or resolution to one part of his identity riddle

Such a sense of identity is never gained nor maintained once

An optimal sense of identity

Identity as a stage in the life-cycle scheme

Trust versus mistrust/hope

[M]other and child [were] on the rails of development with ﬁne

This heightened sensitivity of both players to the nuances of the part-

Autonomy versus shame and doubt/will

[T]he man of the house turned to his three-year-old granddaughter

Such an experience of personal autonomy in completing a diﬃcult task

Initiative versus guilt/purpose

Thus, identity in adolescence has roots in the purposeful activities of