How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Line)
Quote #1
"We were on our own; and so we became fundamentally different beings."
All lies, Frank Chalmers thought irritably. (1.2.1-2)
Right out of the gate, identity takes the stage, and in a conflicting way, too. John says the identity of humanity changed on Mars; Frank thinks it did not. John may die, but that doesn't mean he loses the argument.
Quote #2
Afterward Maya concentrated, trying to recall the looks Boone and Chalmers had exchanged. They had been like something from a code, or the private language invented by identical twins. (2.2.54)
John's identity changes Frank's in the same way Frank's changes John's. Yet the two never seem to come to a common ground regarding their visions on what Mars should be, or Maya for that matter, or chess. Maybe they're more like brothers than Maya knows.
Quote #3
They were all getting media play on Earth, but if you watched some of the news and features, it became clear that some were getting more than others, and this made them seem more powerful, and so they became more powerful in fact, by association. (2.3.32)
They say the camera puts on ten pounds, but that's not the only thing the camera changes about us. Put a camera on someone, and you change their identity and the way people view said identity. And we don't think it's all due to those extra ten pounds either—it's due to being looked at, being the object of the gaze.
Quote #4
"Until it's all some kind of Siberia or Northwest Territories, and Mars will be gone and we'll be here, and we'll wonder why we feel so empty. Why when we look at the land we can never see anything but our own faces." (3.5.166)
Identity shapes environment. Just think of this like someone's home: it might be the same type of house as your home, but the person living there always puts their unique stamp on it. Now imagine that home is a planet, and you're right with Ann here.
Quote #5
All these adaptive abilities are coded and passed along in genes. If the genes mutate, the organisms change. If the genes are altered, the organisms change. (4.1.2)
Where do our genes end, and we begin? Is there even a distinction between the two? Big questions in this quote—best not to tackle on an empty stomach.
Quote #6
They still had a scientific mindset and worldview, they were practical, empirical, rational; one could hope that the selection process on Earth was still working against fanaticism, sending up people with a kind of traveling-Swiss sensibility practical but open to new possibilities, able to form new loyalties and beliefs. Or so he hoped. He knew by now it was a bit naïve. You only had to look at the first hundred to realize scientists could become as fanatical as anybody else, maybe more so […]. (5.4.2)
We give our identities fancy labels such as scientist or religious, reader or Swiss. But do these labels speak to our identity? Or when we whittle all these labels away, are we still as fanatical as everyone else?
Quote #7
That night in the warm dark of their bed she whispered hoarsely, "We'd better do it twice tonight. While it's still us." (5.6.52)
John and Maya are going to significantly altering their genetic structure, and Maya fears the process will alter their identity. On the other hand, you could argue it's another type of medicinal operation, like a root canal. And no one worries about a root canal making them someone else. Or should they?
Quote #8
How hidden the true self is, [Frank] thought, under the phenomenological mask. In reality they were all actors all the time, playing their video parts, and there was no chance of contact with the true selves inside others, not anymore […]. (6.2.53)
Dang, that's dark, yo. But does Frank have a point? Is the true self unreachable by all except the true self? What do you think?
Quote #9
"We're gonna do it different on Mars," Frank said viciously, and all of a sudden he wanted to be there immediately, no careful years of waiting, of campaigning—"Get a f***ing job!" he shouted at another homeless man. (6.3.38)
Frank sees Mars as a place where things can be done differently, yet he treats every homeless man the same way. So if he doesn't change the way he acts—a.k.a. change his identity—will things really be different? We're going with a no.
Quote #10
Young men and women, educated very carefully to be apolitical, making them putty in the hands of their rulers, just like always. It was appalling how stupid they were, really, and he could not help lashing into them.
He left to cheers. (6.5.47-48)
Of course, we decided the last quote just had to deal with politics. When people identify themselves as apolitical, what they're really saying is that it's okay for someone else to decide their lives for them. Frank sees this as a slavish type of identity.