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Hall argues cultural identity is constructed by a common historical origin.Hallpoints out that“Our cultural identities reflect the common historical experiences and shared cultural codes which provide us,as‘one people’,with stable,unchanging andcontinuous frames of reference and meaning,beneath the shifting divisions andvicissitudes of our actual history.”(Hall,1993:225)The racial identity is proposedunder the view of cultural identity.That is to say,cultural identity is given by thehistory of the collective,and its characteristics are also the characteristics of thecollective.It is cultural identity that appears in the face of a collective and isconstituted through long historical experience,which is unquestionable andimmutable.In these two texts,Ben is quite different from modern people,whichcauses people to question whether Ben is really a modern man or what is Ben.Theanswer is given by Ben’s mother,Harriet.She regards Ben as a“Neanderthal baby”.(Lessing,1988:53)The Neanderthal is a kind of primitive man.So,in this part,someprimitive man’s characteristics Ben bears will be examined from the aspects of hisappearance and living habits.

Firstly,Ben’s appearance closely resembles primitive man.Ben looks like amonster rather than a baby when he is born.

He had a heavy-shouldered hunched look,as if he were crouching there as helay.His forehead sloped from his eyebrows to his crown.His hair grew in anunusual pattern from the double crown where started a wedge or triangle thatcame low on the forehead,the hair lying forward in a thick yellowish stubblewhile the side and back hair grew downwards.His hands were thick andheavy,with pads of muscle in the palms.He opened his eyes and lookedstraight up into his mother’s face.They were focussed greeny-yellow eyes,like lumps of soapstone.(Lessing,1988:48-49)

1.2 Civilized Ben Constructed by Historical Rupture

Hall breaks through the limitations of the traditional view of cultural identity.Henot only recognizes the influence of historical continuity on the formation of culturalidentity,but also regards historical rupture and discontinuity as another importantfactor in the formation of cultural identity.The second position to understand culturalidentity is historical rupture.Hall questions the notion that cultural identity isimmutable based on historical origin and experience.The cultural identity establishedin this way,he believes,is too absolute.When it comes to cultural identity,especiallyracial identity,the past history cannot be excluded,but the formation of culturalidentity also cannot ignore the influence of the current background.The formation ofcultural identity should not ignore the new characteristics that are resulted from therupture and discontinuity of history in the passage of time.Hall asks that“sincehistory has intervened,‘what we have become’”(Hall,1993:225)in Cultural Identity and Diaspora.History is reconstructed by the narrator through selectively citing acertain history and using certain historical and cultural resources.Racial identity,likenarrative,will本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。