The Four "I's" of Memoir
When I began reading memoirs, I knew that the main characteristic of the genre is a person telling their own story. While that is still true, I’ve recently discovered it’s a little more complicated than that. The identity of the memoir story teller can be broken down into four parts, or in other words, four different “I’s.”
In their excellent Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives, authors Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson outline the four “I’s” of memoir.
1. Historical "I" – The person producing the memoir.
2. Narrating "I" – Person telling the narrative.
3. Narrated "I" – The version of the self the “Narrating I” is presenting to the reader.
4. Ideological "I" – The cultural, historical, and belief systemsembedded in the “I” of the memoir.
Over the next four weeks, I will go over the four “I’s of memoir, explaining what they are and providing examples of each type.
#1. The “Real” or Historical “I”
[endif]--Smith and Watson define the Historical “I” as:
“Real”: The “flesh-and-blood” “real” historical person “located in a particular time and place,” who is the writer of the memoir. “This ‘I’ lives or lived in the world, going about his or her business in everyday life.”
Verifiable: The existence of this person can be verified with tax records, birth certificates, church records, family albums, memories others have of them and so on.
Unknowable: While we can verify that they are real, the historical “I” is the one “I” that we as readers do not have access to when reading memoir. It is “unknown and unknowable” according to Smith and Watson because ultimately is it is impossible to embed a person in their entirety within any piece of writing. The person sitting at their desk writing or typing is always literally outside of the memoir. We have access to what they put down on the page but not access to inside their head.
So, why as readers should we care about the Historical “I”?
Two Reasons:
1. Every now and then the world of memoir and autobiography goes through a literary scandal with someone writing a book and falsely labeling it an autobiography. A couple recent examples of false memoir include:
2003 - A Million Little Pieces by James Frey which turned out to be a largely fictional account of Frey’s drug problem.
1995 - My Own Sweet Time, said to be written by an Aboriginal Australian woman won critical acclaim before being ousted as a complete hoax, written by Leon Carmen, a 47-year-old white man living in Sydney.
So, Historical “I” is useful for authenticating genuine memoirs and identifying fakes!
2. When reading memoir, it’s natural to begin to feel like we know the person we are reading about. Awareness of the Historical “I” reminds us that we don’t fully know this person and to be looking out for strategies the writer may be employing to guide, persuade or manipulate our reading experience. A good analogy for the Historical “I” is to think of them as the puppeteer pulling the strings on the show we are watching. The text of memoir can be thought of as the puppet, which every now and then, just as Magic-Philppe does, glances up, poignantly, at the creator controlling it.
Paul Daniels Magic-Philppe Genty Puppeteer
Let’s look at an example of the impact Historical “I” can have on memoir in which, like the puppet, the memoir is pointedly gesturing at the “Historical “I” producing it. In Vladimir Nabokov’s memoir Speak, Memory, in Chapter 3 the story is abruptly interrupted by the following announcement:
“The following passage is not for the general reader, but for the particular idiot who, because he lost a fortune in some cash, thinks he understands me.”
- Vladimir Nabokov
This intrusion blatantly refers to the Historical “I.” Nabokov is essentially wagging his finger at us reminding us we don’t know him. While we may have historical knowledge that the Russian memoirist’s family lost a considerable amount of money and property during the Soviet dictatorship in 1917, we better not assume that this is his motivation for writing this memoir. He goes on to tell us his reason for writing is:
“The nostalgia I have been cherishing all these years is a hypertrophied sense of lost childhood, not sorrow for lost banknotes.” - Vladimir Nabokov
As readers, we do NOT simply accept this statement as truth and shift our reading focus accordingly but rather we should be aware that Nabokov has reached in and made a direct attempt to manipulate how and what we take out of our reading experience. Once we have completed our reading we can decide the extent to which this statement is corroborated by what we read or ploy to maneuver our reading.
So, next time you are reading memoir keep a look out for the gentle tugs, nudges or out-right slaps of the writer prodding you along. While we don’t have direct access to the Historical “I,” these pokes suggest what the goals of the Historical “I” are for their writing and what they want or hope you will get out of reading their memoir.
Have you ever experienced a memoir writer’s subtle or not-so-subtle reach-in? Tell me about it!
Come back next week to learn about the “Narrative I.”
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