Mirror Image by Lena Coakley
_
Theme Statement – Identity
is the Theme
“Mirror Image”
Lena Coakley, in her short story “Mirror Image,” explores the idea that identity is often changing and in flux. Her protagonist Alice struggles to find herself amidst the trauma of a body transplant. She no longer looks the same, she no longer feels the same, but she is expected to live the life her brain lived. Coakley explores, through the Alice character, the idea that the identity is not embedded into either the brain or the body, but rather is a complex melding of the two. The realization that who we are is not firmly and irrevocably established at birth is part of a human’s evolution, one that we each must, to some degree or another, experience.
“Mirror Image”
Lena Coakley, in her short story “Mirror Image,” explores the idea that identity is often changing and in flux. Her protagonist Alice struggles to find herself amidst the trauma of a body transplant. She no longer looks the same, she no longer feels the same, but she is expected to live the life her brain lived. Coakley explores, through the Alice character, the idea that the identity is not embedded into either the brain or the body, but rather is a complex melding of the two. The realization that who we are is not firmly and irrevocably established at birth is part of a human’s evolution, one that we each must, to some degree or another, experience.