Representation of body and identity in Kureishi’s “The Body”

Abstract

Hanif Kureishi's novella "The Body" follows teh story of a playwright in his sixties whose old body becomes the cause of his attampts to avoid mortality. The premise of the novella is teh playwright's phantasmagorical decision to have his brain transplanted to a male body in his early twenties. With its semi-science fictional and reincarnational references, "The Body" represents the protagonist's discontent with his former body and his admiration for a young, fit and sexually desirable one. This article attempts to question whether or not the body adn teh self should match one each other, since the playwright's new bodey becomes teh representative of two different identities. It will also be argued within the contemporary cultural theories that the body likewise occupies a cultural space by shaping one's attitude towrads culture and identity.