The Question Of Identity For Django: Unchained

In Django: Unchained the whole question of identity stems from Dr. King. Think about it, he left his job as a dentist to become a bounty hunter. With a deeper look into his motives and thought processes which stemmed from this course of action was a sense of hatred. He didn’t want to be of a higher power than other individuals; he hated the discrimination and everything that was surrounding him, which lead to him to his search for more.

 Further leading him to change his career into something that could be of more help to society. He becomes a bounty hunter, making the bad white men pay for their awful actions. He became a person of importance by freeing someone and changing the roles. He respected and treated Django as his own, which was definitely unheard of in that era, and was the result of him questioning his identity. His search for a better society with better rights leads him to question his identity and leads him to Django.

For Django, I believe the search challenges him to figure out who he is and who he wants to be; and how exactly he’s going to achieve that. He seeks revenge and makes those people atone for their mistreatment of not only him, but his beloved as well. The search for his love and their freedom brings upon great challenge to his self, and identity by the trial of making a place in a world that does not want him to have power and authority. He is challenged to become strong against the beliefs of the world - to become a free man, unlike many other African Americans in the film. Once he becomes a free man brings upon another challenge of identity: people still belittled him. 

This causes him to face the challenge of becoming his true self which now that he was a free man - he was able to begin to do. The questions he faces about his identity come about throughout the stages of the film. First understanding why: why he was saved by Dr. King, to finding his place with Dr. King, to understanding what the feeling of respect is, then speaking up for himself and allowing himself to speak against what everyone else is saying. Then there’s the development of standing his ground, making his own decisions, fighting for himself, contradicting others, and finally escaping the slave life for the second time. And even many more moments that the search had him questioning his identity and forming himself into the version of himself he has always desired to be. Overall this shows that the search of freedom for him and his love gives him a chance to figure out his true potential in the world and as an individual.