Cynthia Pittmann's PhD dissertation research blog on everything related to the writer Jamaica Kincaid and autobiography - including internet exchanges, posts, videos and comments about the author and issues related to autobiography.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
What do we think about ourselves?
I was looking at this link about writing autobiography. http://www.sarasota.k12.fl.us/bhs/bryan/bryan_auto.html It's a basic level class writing assignment; I thought it revealed some of the underlying assumptions that we have about autobiography. It is organized by a series of questions such as who you are in life and what does life mean to you? What is your outlook on the future? The introduction is grounded in basic facts about your life and the conclusion comes back to this data. It cites Augustine as the first autobiographer dating from around 400AD. This orientation is what most readers expect when they read an autobiography; but it significantly differs from many autobiographies, particularly Jamaica Kincaid.
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