Intertextuality In The Telling Of Truth
Narratives work to establish truth and build understanding. Joan Didion’s novel The White Album is a revealing narrative of events that occurred in the 1960's. Didion gives honest and thoughtful snapshots of the eventful era, focusing on the mundane and personal in a very informative and intimate manner that is helpful in understanding what life was like then. Through her unique use of intertextuality, that is the interrelation between texts, one may see the various ways in which the truth is shaped and presented. Narratives are strongly shaped in relation to prior texts through the use of personal values in the evaluation of stories, the use of direct quotations, and the critique and rejection of prior texts. The stylish intersection of personal memory and cultural memory in The White Album allows its readers to establish their own identity with its content through also understanding the speaker’s perspective, giving the narrative authority as a source of authenticity.
Analysis of retold stories show both the formation of the core story and the effect of the speaker’s position on the form of the story. One’s association within society shapes that individual’s stories. The ways in which members tell their own stories within a field of prior texts also examines the notions of intertextuality, showing how truth in narratives is furthermore shaped in relation to the personal texts and opinions of the speaker. How people tell their own stories within an establishment reveals the small links and minute traces between how individual stories are shaped to harmonize with the events and values of the main institutional narrative (Linde 4). An individuals' story is not only personal, but is produced ...
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...s her own interior journey during the tumultuous time of the sixties, in addition to executing a mix of people and place portraits with an original consideration of American cultural trends and movements. As a result the whole of the collection is an authentic work of autobiography. All of these factors of the novel are made possible due to Didion’s expert use of intertextuality. The inclusion of various texts and meanings shapes and presents the truth found in narrative in a unique way for each of its readers.
Works Cited
Barthes, Roland, and Stephen Heath. Image, Music, Text. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977. Semiotics for Beginners. Web.
Didion, Joan. The White Album. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979. Print.
Linde, Charlotte. Working the Past: Narrative and Institutional Memory. N.p.: Oxford UP, 2009. Oxford Scholarship Online. Jan. 2009. Web.
As the endless progression of time into the future continues, moments from the past live on with us in the form of memories, and regardless of how vague and fragmented they may be, they are constantly molding our existence; our very individuality. In Jeannette C. Armstrong’s “Blue against White,” the protagonist, Lena, who is a native girl, experiences this phenomena as her memories of the past shape her and allow her to persevere through the struggles of life on the reserve, and in the city. Throughout the story, Armstrong uses symbolism, imagery, and a flashback of Lena’s past to signify the importance of memories. Her idea of the past is mainly represented by the use of the blue door of Lena’s house as a symbol, which creates a comparison
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Joan Didion in her essay, “On Keeping a Notebook”, stresses that keeping a notebook is not like keeping a journal. Didion supports her claim by describing entries that are in her notebook. The author’s purpose is to enlighten the reader as to what a notebook is. The author writes in a nostalgic tone for those who are reading the essay, so that they can relate to her. She uses rhetorical appeals; such as flashback, pathos, and imagery to name a few. By using these devices she helps capture the reader’s attention.
...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.
Author, Joan Didion, in her essay, On Keeping a Notebook, expands the importance of keeping a notebook. Didion’s purpose is to elucidate why having and using a notebook is essential and give examples of how to keep one. She adopts a forthright and didactic tone in order to emphasize notebook keeping with her audience. Didion provides rhetorical question, flashbacks, and the use of pathos to support the purpose of writing her essay.
Michael Cunningham’s “White Angel” is not merely a story about two boys growing up in a small town in Ohio in the 1960s. This is a story about the shattered innocence of America through historical events in their era, such as, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Vietnam War. The narrator of this story is nine year old boy, Bobby or “Frisco,” who symbolizes the somber reality of the history of this decade. This character takes risks although they are thoughtfully calculated. He views the world with great admiration through his older, sixteen year old brother Carlton; yet is still analytical over the choices Carlton makes before his untimely death. In this story, Carlton represents the wild and free innocence
Bernstock, Shari. The Private self: theory and practice of women's autobiographical writings. New York: UNC Press Books, 1988. Print.
The essay is Didion’s account of a visit she made to her family house in the Central Valley of California for her daughter’s first birthday and how she found herself facing her past at every turn. According to Didion, family life was “the source of all tension and drama” in her life. She mentions over and over that being home gave her a sense of unease, “some nameless anxiety”, but despite this she suggests that home, and the emotional baggage that came with leaving home, defined the character of her generation and she sees it as essential in having formed her personality. Didion ends the essay with the rather upsetting revelation that she “would like to give [her daughter] home for her birthday but we live differently
Throughout my life I have heard a wide range of stories from my parents. When putting this assignment together I have put these stories into account. Randall Bass, educator of English at Georgetown University, concurs that stories shape individuals ' personalities. Bass expresses that, "People infer their feeling of personality from their way of life, and societies are frameworks of conviction that decide how individuals experience their lives" (Bass 1). Social stories about family history, religion, nationality, and legacy impact individuals ' conduct and convictions. Personalities of diverse individuals originate from their societies. Narrating starts at home. Stories associate individuals to their frameworks of convictions. They shape individuals ' lives by giving them a model of how to live. Individuals get their most punctual learning from distinctive stories. (Bass)
Both Zadie Smith with “Some Notes on Attunement” and Vanessa Veselka with “Highway of Lost Girls” use their essay to tell a story. Yet in analyzing these pieces of writing, it is clear that there are more to them than just the stories themselves. These stories, filled with personal thoughts and experiences, also are full of an assortment of stylistic choices such as repetition and comparisons that emphasize many deep, underlying ideas.
The Creature That Opened My Eyes Sympathy, anger, hate, and empathy, these are just a few of the emotions that came over me while getting to know and trying to understand the creature created by victor frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. For the first time I became completely enthralled in a novel and learned to appreciate literature not only for the great stories they tell but also for the affect it could have on someones life as cliché as that might sound, if that weren’t enough it also gave me a greater appreciation and understanding of the idiom “never judge a book by its cover.” As a pimply faced, insecure, loner, and at most times self absorbed sophomore in high school I was never one to put anytime or focus when it came time