Identity Metamorphosis in Rawi Hage’s Cockroach

Abstract

This essay studies Rawi Hage’s novel about the struggle against cultural integration. The protagonist embodies a cockroach persona, comparable to that of Franz Kafka’s main character in his novella The Metamorphosis. Through the analysis of the challenges of interculturality in Montreal’s mainstream society, this essay traces the protagonist’s acceptance of his condition of in-betweenness or liminality, which reveals a socio-cultural tension between his Lebanese cultural identity and Quebec’s society