We produce our “self” in language and we are what speaks us.

According to Robyn’s thought, people’s identity is built on cultural ideology where they live. Indeed we are influenced by cultural ideologies and inputs that we received just from we were born from our parents. For example when we speaks about something is “wrong” or is “good”, we unconsciously refer to Christian code, but it is only one of the languages we can be influenced.   Also Robyn is the product of the society she lived. She doesn’t  believe in the concept of character,she thinks the ideology of capitalism was born and grew in the same time of novel’s one and she was a feminist. These pieces of information make the reader understand Robyn is the result of the association among different identities. Indeed she has the same ideas of other concurrent writers and she is influenced by nineteenth century’s feminist movement.

Robyn calls the trend of thought “semiotic materialism”. According to this Émile Durkheim wrote some books. He was a French sociologist and he was considered the father of anthropology and sociology. About the topic in The Rules of Sociological Method (1895) he wrote:

·        ...private sentiments become social only in combining under the pressure of sui generis forces that this association develops. Following these combinations and the mutual alterations that result from them, they become something else.  

·        We are born into a family, granted a nationality, and given an education, without our choosing any of them; and it is these associations which in turn determine those more "voluntary" obligations in which we subsequently acquiesce. All societies are born of other societies. 

·        ...society is not the mere sum of individuals, but the system formed by their association represents a specific reality which has its own characteristics. Undoubtedly no collective entity can be produced if there are no individual consciousnesses…these consciousnesses must be associated and combined, but combined in a certain way .. By aggregating together, by interpenetrating, by fusing together, individuals give birth to a being, psychical if you will, but one which constitutes a psychical individuality of a new kind.

We can deduce nothing is new or original, all that exists is the result of a continuous construction. The society and our identity are subjected to other ones and people aren’t constituted by a defined and unique “self”. We are the result of the inter-identities. According to this Robyn cannot believe in the concept of character.

 In addition we aren’t able to know our real identity. People show themselves in their attitude and in their way of speaking. As a result we can’t know really who we are, but we show our “self” only in relation with others.