I have chosen the article “The Lives Of Ronald Pinn” by Andrew O’Hagan to perform a critical analysis of. O’Hagan uses both explaining and reporting but he doesn’t reference any sources of secondary information he mentioned throughout the article. O’Hagan writes about the time he used a deceased young man’s name to create an identity and reporting of previous cases of deceased men this has happened to; O’Hagan questions what identity truly means and conducts an ‘experiment’ to conclude whether or not identity belongs to an individual. I chose this particular article as numerous things he does throughout his story conflict with my views of morality however agree with he general review on identity.
To summarise The Lives Of Ronald Pinn O’Hagan is walking through a graveyard when he comes across the deceased Ronald Pinn’s gravestone, he has heard previously that the metropolitan police force often used young deceased children’s names up until the 1960’s as undercover legends. This clearly intreges the writer and questions whether or not these undercover legends would have an identity or not. This is when O’Hagan researches into Ronald…show more content… For example “But who owns the narrative of a person’s life? Do you own your own story? Do you own your children’s? Or are these stories just part of what life manifested over the course of time, with no curator, no owner, no keeper who has the rights and holds the key?” These are all rhetorical questions he is asking the reader in order for them to decide for themself what they believe identity to be. In other words identity cannot be defined, nor can it be separated from the deceased or living, even if the deceased, such as Ronald Pinn are believed to be living (Ronnie). Identity is both what you believe yourself to be and what others believe you to
