The back cover of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee describes the book as “A classic work of autobiography that transcends the self.” This phrase is self-contradictory. The Oxford English Dictionary defines autobiography as “an account of a person’s life given by himself or herself.” If it is indeed an autobiography, Dictee is unorthodox, because it discusses the accounts of several other people instead of focusing only on the author. Moreover, the variety of media in Dictee multiples the book’s unusualness. Identification of the plurality inherent in the material and structural levels of Dictee shows that the contradictions originate from considering Dictee as a ‘work’. Roland Barthes’s approach gives a more accurate description of Dictee, as a collection of self-deference. Yet, whereas Barthes claims the complete removal of the author from the text, Cha manages to assert her authorship by deliberately altering details in her text, as if her memories are blurry. Working with the pluralities in mediation and structure, Cha posits Dictee as the Text projected through the author’s memory. Usage of various media throughout Dictee implies that interpretive reading on Dictee does not work. It is difficult to classify Dictee into one genre, because it blends several forms of writing, some quoted and others original. Moreover, the text’s plurality extends the written medium into the graphic realm. Instead of allocating images or texts separately, Cha interweaves them throughout Dictee. For instance, the Clio section begins with a photograph of Yu Guan Soon, followed by her biography, calligraphy of Chinese characters meaning woman and man, and an excerpt from a Korean history book. There are also a news article on Japanese forces in Korea, ... ... middle of paper ... ... subjectivity of the author returns at a more fundamental level, at the projection of the Text. As the Text embodies the author’s legacy (the errors), the author also becomes a part of the Text. Thus, by ‘playing’ with the Text, Cha has met the goal she presented in the name of Sappho: “May I write words more naked than flesh, stronger than bone, more resilient than sinew, sensitive than nerve.” The words Cha wrote do belong in the Text. They are stored in the collective memory, safe from the decay innate to physical existence. Works Cited Cha, Theresa Hak Kyung. Dictee. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. Print. "Autobiography." Oxford English Dictionary. 3rd ed. 2011. Web. 10 March 2014. Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author,” “From Work to Text.” Image, Music, Text. Trans. Stephan Heath. New York: Hill and Wang, 1978. 142-148, 155-164. Print.
Brizee, Allen, and J. Case Tompkins. "Purdue OWL: Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism." Welcome to the Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL). 21 Apr. 2010. Web. 21 Apr. 2011. .
Winner, Paul . "Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 176, Amy Hempel." Paris Review – Writers, Quotes, Biography, Interviews, Artists. Version No. 166. The Paris Review, n.d. Web. 30 May 2012. .
Rochette-Crawley, S. (2004) James T. Farrell. The Literary Encyclopedia. April 2, 2004. Retrieved on May 13, 2009 from http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1487
1970, pp. 7-8. Rpt. In The Chelsea House Library of Literary Criticism. New York.:Chelsea House Publishers, 1988.
To read the Civil War diary of Alice Williamson, a 16 year old girl, is to meander through the personal, cultural and political experience of both the author and one's self. Her writing feels like a bullet ricocheted through war, time, death, literary form, femininity, youth, state, freedom and obligation. This investigation attempts to do the same; to touch on the many issues that arise in the mind of the reader when becoming part of the text through the act of reading. This paper will lay no definitive claims to the absolute meaning of the diary, for it has many possible interpretations, for the journey is the ultimate answer. I seek to acknowledge the fluidity of thought when reading, a fluidity which incorporates personal experience with the content of Williamson's journal. I read the journal personally- as a woman, a peer in age to Alice Williamson, a surrogate experiencialist, a writer, an academic and most of all, a modern reader unaccustomed to the personal experience of war. I read the text within a context- as a researcher versed on the period, genre, aesthetics, and to some degree the writer herself. The molding of the personal and contextual create a rich personalized textual meaning .
It should be noted that gaining an identity in autobiographical writing is crucial “because literacy becomes a way of creating an identity where before there was none in the public discourse” (Finkelman, vol.2, 190). Although the identities of William and Ellen Craft may have been revealed partially before their narrative, their own words and experience have a much greater impact on the reader than if told by a secondary source.
Barnet, Sylvan, William Burto and William E. Cain. Literature for Composition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson, 2014.
...d recommend[s] books based on [her] connection with the written word and its message” (Baillie). She claims that the publishers should be the ones to define a memoir as a memoir and she will accept the book as the category given to her, and that if it is a memoir, she understands that the dates and facts may be blurred and compressed; however, an argument forms that a memoir should not be composed of blurred and compressed facts, but the simple truth. The most important aspect of Defonseca’s book is the truth; however, when the validity is taken from a memoir, the meaning of it follows. Her book’s themes, messages, and morals derive from the fact that it is a true experience; however, when the truth of the memoir was taken away, the meaning of the memoir was too. Her inspirational story is no longer inspirational when it becomes fictional, causing it to lose value.
"I no longer believe that the author has a sort of patria potestas over his brainchildren. Once they are printed they have reached their majority and the author has no more authority over them, knows no more about them, perhaps knows less about them than the critic who comes fresh to them, and sees them not as the author hoped they would be, but as what they are" (45).
Utilizing effective diction is key as Welty to put together the mosaic of memories that illustrates the intense presence of reading in her life. Her use of diction pulls the reader into the scenes, it makes them real. When she describe the library the wording allows to hear “the steady seething of the electric fan”, the harsh tone of the librarian’s “normal commanding
Griffin, Emory A. "Semiotics of Roland Barthes." A First Look at Communication Theory. Seventh Ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2009. Print.
"Morton, Thomas - Introduction." Literary Criticism (1400-1800). Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg. Vol. 72. Gale Cengage, 2002. eNotes.com. 2006. 21 Feb, 2011
Many points of view come from people who share powerful stories with hidden messages, which change other people’s lives. Maxine Hong Kingston’s book, “The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts,” is about the stories she had grown up hearing throughout childhood, mainly of women who have had a significant role in her life. She writes about the memories, fantasies, and speculation of women’s lives who have impacted hers. The power of this book comes from the ‘talk-story’ or stories such as Fa Mu Lan, and Ts’ai Yen told by her family, because these bring her the strength on her path of finding her identity and gaining a better understand of her own place in the world. Also, Kingston shares language with women so that they can discover
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.” Heritage of American Literature. Ed. James E. Miller. Vol 2. Austin: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991.487.Print.