Résumé
The idea of self, an individual authentic unique identity, seems to be constantly questioned and challenged in literature. The latter became a metanarrative that seems to have catalyzed the birth of a distinct representation of different cultures through literary stereotypes that often dehumanize, downgrade and decenter someone’s culture. Such cultural misrepresentation of individual identity could be observed in Perceval Everett’s Erasure and Philip Roth’s The Ghost Writer. Indeed, both authors hold metanarratives responsible for identity misrepresentation. In this regard, they portray protagonist writers who seem to wage a crusade against the commonplace characterizations which they deem as misleading and falsified narratives that depict African identity in Erasure, and Jewish identity in The Ghost Writer. In Erasure, Everett decries the limitations of literary depictions enforced by commercial African American fiction. His protagonist, Thelonious Ellison, is an author who attempts at wrestling his fiction free from the popularized portrayals. In this respect, Roth, through his main character, Nathan Zuckerman, portrays a writer whose notion of self is in some significant manner tied to his writing. He opposes the stereotyped representation of Jewish identity in writings and seeks to deliver a proper narrative. Using Jean François Lyotard’s critical theory of metanarratives, this paper aims to discuss how literature, as a master narrative, may shape and define identities by showing how both writers heed and shed light through their protagonists on identity misrepresentation in literary metanarratives.