The Identity Analysis of Yussef El Guindi’s Ten Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith

Abstract

The meaning of home differs from one person to another. America hosts many hybrid cultures and one of them is the Arab American identity. These people suffer from many hardships not only because of their religious differences, but also their traditional alienation to American culture. This paper will analyze the Egyptian-American playwright Yussef El Guindi’s play Ten Acrobats in An Amazing Leap of Faith (2018), presenting the fear and anxiety for the unknown culture in an Arab American family who struggle with identity problems and the American lifestyle. The concept of in-betweenness will be analyzed in each character and as Stuart Hall mentioned in his theory, this study will carry out “the eye of the needle of the other before it can construct itself” (1996, p. 89). As for identity framework, each character will be examined in terms of identity, gender and religious perspectives. The hardships of each character throws light on various commentaries in relating to the identity analyses and this study will explicitly show how the concept of identity will be shown with different Arab Americans. The cultural conflict is understood with Arab American identities that captivated the hegemonic Americanized thought system in America. While analyzing all characters in the play, this study will present how El Guindi reflects upon the lives of in-between Arab Americans with various issues such as religion, gender and race. While studying themes such as identity, religion, gender and race, the framework will be considered according to the theorists like Homi Bhabha, Stuart Hall, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.