Requiem's Waltz, a novel illuminating interpersonal relations between inner-and other-directed identities

Abstract

In The Lonely Crowd, David Riesman proposes the distinction between inner- and other-directed people. Inner-directed people have core values and are internally driven. Contrast this with the other-directed individual who uses his or her contemporaries--friends and the mass media--as sources for identity--a presentational self drawn from the expectations of whoever is currently watching. I explore this dichotomy in a creative work, a novel entitled Requiem's Waltz. In this novel, two protagonists, a woman and her stepson, alternate telling the story; one protagonist is inner-directed; the other is other-directed. And when the third member of the family suddenly dies, the two opposing identity types are forced to find some way to communicate, some way to connect as opposed to merely dancing around one another, dancing to death's song--the requiem's waltz.