The Island: Struggle for personal identity

You want to go to the Island. You will wear a cool white jump suit. You will eat the selected menu for you. You will strive to be selected in the lottery. You will not question any of this.  

In the 2005 Michael Bay film The Island that is the reality. The survivors of society live in a quarantined area waiting to be selected through lottery to travel to the last remaining utopia, the island. This reality lies unquestioned until the very curious Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) decides there is something wrong. Lincoln discovers that he is nothing more than a clone after following fellow “survivor” Starkweather after he got chosen in the lottery to go to the island. Lincoln observes the doctors retrieving Starkweather’s organs for a professional football player who purchased him. Everyone he knows is simply a clone awaiting their purpose for their purchasers such as delivering a baby, spare limbs, or fresh organs.

When Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) gets chosen for the lottery, Lincoln knows what will happen to her and the two escape into the real world. Having spent their existence in such a controlled environment, both Lincoln and Jordan have little in terms of personal identity. Where better to start understanding who you are than the person you are cloned after? Unfortunately Lincoln’s purchaser (Tom Lincoln) is a jerk who eventually reports their whereabouts to the cloning agency, while Jordan’s purchaser (Sarah Jordan)  is in a coma from a car crash. Even though they have discovered the identities of their purchasers, it has little help in giving them anymore of a sense of identity. Base on the principle of identity two things are only identical when they coincide in every aspect ( Vesey & Foulkes, 1990, p.147).

It is not as simple as Lincoln taking on the identity of Tom, because they are not the same person. One theory as to what creates an identity is the memory theory. The memory theory explains that individuals unique memories are what differentiate us form one another (Rowlands, 2003, p.96). In the film the clones come alive as fully matured adults, so all of the valuable experiences and memories obtained throughout childhood and adolescents that typically help to define a person would be missing.  This does not mean that the memories that they have from their time in the clone facility are invalid. They in fact shape the identity of these two people. Locke’s idea that the ability to be aware of one’s own mind is in itself identity (Upton, 2005, p.78)

Lincoln and Jordan, while identical biologically to their clone, like and identical twin would have different memories and therefore a completely different identity. While the level of cloning completed in The Island is not a current reality, it is one that seems more and more probable. Regardless of the ethical issues surrounding cloning, what would that mean for personal identity? Identical twins commonly struggle to create their own separate identities. What would happen if there were 14 clones each struggling to assert themselves into society. Personal identity is the essence of one’s self, giving guidance to morals, religion, opinions, clothing, without which we become sheep like.

Word Count: 533

References

Rowlands, M. (2003). The philosopher at the end of the universe: Philosophy explained through   science fiction films. London: Ebury Press.

Upton, H. (2005). Nursing Philosophy, 6, 77-79.

Vesey, G. & Foulkes, P. (1990). Collins dictionary of philosophy. Great Britain: Collins.

Bay, M. (Producer & Director). (22^nd of July, 2005). The Island [Motion picture]. United States: Dreamworks & Warner Bros.