The process of identity formation through transcendence in the modern novel (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Mikhail Bulgakov, Russia, Nadine Gordimer, South Africa, Doris Lessing, Zimbabwe, Toni Morrison, E. M. Forster, Joseph Heller)

The purpose of this dissertation is to delineate a method for illuminating characters in a text by utilizing identity formation theories of modern psychologists. The behaviors, life experiences and decisions of these characters are analyzed in light of the different paradigms offered by the following psychologists: Erik Erikson, Jane Loevinger, Peter Blos, Lawrence Kohlberg and Robert Kegan. Eight protagonists from modern novels are critically examined. They are Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Denver from Beloved by Toni Morrison, Rosa Burger from Burger's Daughter by Nadine Gordimer, Margaret Schlegel from Howard's End by E. M. Forster, Lily Briscoe from To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, Yossarian from Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, the Narrator from Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing and Margarita from The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. The dissertation also presents narratives that inform the discourse of transcendence and explores those facets of transcendence used in the identity formation process.