Narrative and Identity

Seriously, what a topic! The author, Paul John Eakin, approaches the study of autobiography in his new book, Living Autobiographically; How we Create Identity in Narrative with the following four chapters: (1) Talking about Ourselves: the Rules of the Game (2) Autobiographical Consciousness: Body, Brain, Self, and Narrative (3) Identity Work: People Making Stories and (4) Living Autobiographically.



For now, I will select material that focuses on a general question:

Who writes what..and what can be written? Later (or soon?---sooner or later!) I will address how these questions impact the reader of Jamaica Kincaid and the writer herself. On a personal level, these questions impact me as I write an autobiographically driven blog so I think about them every day.



I'm interested in autobiographical writers and the writing of autobiography because the genre places great decision making pressure on the author beginning with the question, who should write an autobiography or memoir? Once someone, the new author or the seasoned author, begins the process of writing, a slew of questions come up. What can I say? Who will be offended by this story? What should I cut or add for narrative flow, aesthetic, and literary reasons? And the most pressing question, what should I hide for privacy reasons?



Eakin begins with the idea that we talk about ourselves everyday, that we create stories in our minds even if we don't share them with others.
Two ways of looking at identity, episodic and continuous, are pointed to as in conflict with each other. Later, it seems to decide that both are really present...though he favors continuous.
What does that mean? When a person's identity is episodic, they are able to have a fresh start new identity without reference to the past...where she came from, who her parents were, ...the starting event can occur whenever...Eaken writes about a medically disabled person, who has to decide who he is every day. He can't remember the past and so is stuck in a cycle of self story creation. (Sounds like 50 First Dates, the movie) And too, he mentions a person who (Episcopalian) who choses to be new through spirit, I suppose. A continuous identity begins from the past and changes/shifts from that reference point. Reading about this makes me think about how these two ways of framing identity are implicated in notions of re-making identity through narrative.

Jamaica Kincaid changed her name and her vision of who she was in the world by moving from her home, observing how people live, writing about her insights and providing wittily bold opinions. Nonetheless, she continued to mark the place of her birth and circumstances as the genesis of who she became. She remade herself but in a continuous manner...however, that story of beginning in Antigua was contained by the narrative...in actual life, she stopped communicating with her mother for 20 years...she didn't send back money as was expected. She had a sense that her connection would bring her down or back to who she was and that was too psychologically dangerous. She has stated in her interview (insert) that she stopped communication with her family, and in Lucy she writes about the girl who won't read her family letters and will not write back. I think that narrative, the story about our lives, is continuous but in working out a new identity sometimes the past must be contained. People do this by lying about where they came from and about what happened as they were growing up. Even in their new recreated identity, they may have to lie to maintain who they currently are and even what they do.
Interestingly, Eaken puts forth the idea that there are rules that constrain the narrative and hold it to an idea of objective truth. I think Kincaid felt that her family would not support the reinvention of herself...and the stories she told in the form of writing and speech (interviews) helped her to figure out who she was and how she came to be. They also created space from that time when she lived in Antigua to the time she became her new self in the eastern United States. This containment strategy has an element of the episodic, Old Elaine Cynthia Potter Richardson/New Jamaica Kincaid, and also includes continuous identity formation because her starting point is frequently referenced. The reader never forgets where Kincaid was raised and her difficult circumstances. Who Kincaid became is based a beginning subsequent events.
Who does the policing for truth in memoir...who gives permission to invent and where is the objectively verifiable truth line drawn....how much can be created by making the memoir, filling in the dialogue when Kincaid was four in Mr. Potter: the event of seeing her biological father is repeated and detailed even though it is unlikely that she could remember it to that extent. One reviewer was critical of this detail. His unbelief in the memory for Kincaid's detail and its significance to her is part of an attempt to police. Foucault refers to those who police institutions but Eaken mentions society as the controlling force. (check) I think this example supports the notion of society policing and also shows how it can be done to an author through a book review.
















Eakin, Paul John. Living Autobiographically in Narrative Identity. Ithaca, NY; Cornell University Press 2008.

Who is Jamaica Kincaid?

Jamaica Kincaid is an Antiquan writer who currently lives in Vermont. She has written many novels and works of nonfiction but the majority of her work is autobiographic. Kincaid is interesting because she complicates autobiography by using techniques that make the reader experience a kind of cognitive dissonance, which is the experience of holding conflicting thoughts in your mind. The way I use the psychological term is different than a psychologist might because these thoughts that you believe in, trust, and use as a guideline are uncovered through the reading of Kincaid. A classic definition focuses on a preexisting condition of holding simultaneous conflicting thoughts which is not necessarily triggered by the experience of reading. For an example of this sensation, we might consider reading Lucy, Kincaid's second novel. You may realize that you are similar to a character-in my case, Mariah,-and through the rejection of this character's identity, you begin to uncover what it is about yourself and/or the culture that you identify with that is aversive. You find yourself both liking and rejecting the character. Mariah is a sweet-natured naive mother who is unaware of her impact on other people and the natural environment, identifies with both her European and questionable Native American ancestry, and claims feminist loyalty but plays by the rules of the affluent fully integrated society woman. These contradictions cause little questioning in the character, she cannot conceptualize Lucy's perspective, but the reader is able to reflect and discover the ways that she is both alike and different from Lucy and Mariah; nevertheless, by the completion of the novel resolution is unsatisfactory. Lucy and Mariah's troubling perspectives interfere with the reader's peace. Consequently, this reader is processing Kincaid more thoroughly in her PhD dissertation, Jamaica Kincaid and the Dynamics of Autobiography.