Graceling Theme of Identity

Who am I? Why am I here? Where do I fit in? A lot of young adult lit deals with these types of questions. Why? Because it's a pretty prominent theme in the lives of young adults as they navigate their way from child to adult, from dependent to independent, from royal thug to kingdom protector. (What do you mean you're not familiar with that last transition?)

In Graceling, Katsa is no exception to the general rule here—but she is a little different when it comes to the specifics. For one thing, she's a Graceling who has completely misunderstood her Grace. And for another, she's had a manipulative uncle messing around with her identity for the last ten years.

So instead of wondering what she'll be when she grows up or where she wants to go to college, Katsa spends half her time trying to convince herself she's not a monster and half her time chastising herself because she thinks she is. Plus she's a young woman who doesn't want a husband or children in a time when the roles that women are supposed to aspire to are wife and mother.

So when it comes to identity? Yeah—Katsa's kind of having a crisis.

1. Katsa has done some things in her life that, in a different time and place, would land her in prison. She's killed more than one person and maimed and injured plenty of others. But we still like her and think she's a good person. What's going on here? Are we having an identity crisis?
2. Do you think a person's identity—who they are at their core—can change over time? Why or why not? And how does that seem to play out with Katsa? Has she changed over the years, or has she always been the same person, whether she was killing people or rescuing them? Explain.
3. What matters more when it comes to identity: the way other people see us or the way we see ourselves?
4. When does Katsa's opinion of herself begin to change? What things do you think help her to begin questioning her identity? And what is it that finally allows Katsa to view herself in a different light?

Katsa may be having an identity crisis, but her identity never changes; she is the exact same person at the end of the book as she is at the beginning.

Even without Po, Katsa would eventually have defied Randa, left his court, and figured out the truth of her Grace.