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Unit 28 Mk Gandhi's UNIT 28 M. K. GANDHI'S : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY or THE STORY OF MY EXPERIMENTS I WITH TRUTH I Structure Objectives Introduction to Autobiography M. K. Gandhi (1869-1948) Text "A Month With Gokhale" 28.3.1 Chapter 17 28.3.2 Chapter 18 28.3.3 Chapter 19 Glossary Discussion Let Us Sum Up Suggested Reading Answers to Exercises 28.0 OBJECTIVES After going through this unit you will be able to: understand and define autobiography as a form of prose; read and comprehend "A Month With Gokhale - I, I1,III" from M. K. Gandhi's An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1927); appreciate Gandhis' art and craft of autobiography. 28.1 INTRODUCTION TO AUTOBIOGRAPHY What is Autobiography? Autobiography is a branch of biographical literature written in subjective prose. It is always incomplete as it is the story of a person who writes it himherself. 'It is usually written at a later stage in life. The events are recollected either in chronological sequence or at random, moving back and forth in time. However, all autobiographies are not written when the author is old. For example, Dom Moraes wrote his autobiography entitled My Son's Father when he was only twenty two! An autobiography may appear biased which is justified because one person's point of view is being presented. Details of personal experience are made interesting so that regardless of the fame or obscurity of the writer, the reader's attention is engaged and curiosity aroused. Writers talk freely about themselves making frequent use of the first person pronoun. The reader is expected to be sympathetic rather than to sit on judgement. What is important in such a literary form is not a rigid or strictly logical structure, but a spontaneous, easy and flexible movement. Thus we cannot judge autobiography in the same way as we would biography. In a biography, the M.K. Gandhi's :An objectivity of the writer is a major consideration in judging its overall merit. Autobiography. or The Story of My Experiments with Truth Informal Autobiography Autobiographies can either be informal or formal. Informal autobiographies may or may not be intended for publication. Letters, diaries and journals fall within this category. Letters of famous men like Byron are an index to their personalities and therefore of great interest to the reader. The young Jewish girl Anne Frank's Diary created such an impact that it has often been staged as well as filmed. You will be reading about it in the next unit. Dorothy Wordsworth's Journals (1897) record her experiences providing us with information about the little-known facts about her more famous brother, the poet Wordsworth. All these books represent a self-conscious form of revelation. But they are not important only for the information that they provide but are also aesthetically pleasing. Memoirs are another form of informal autobiography. Here the emphasis is on the events and experiences remembered rather than on the personality of the person who remembers. Formal Autobiography Formal autobiography attempts to reconstruct a life through recollection. The autobiographer has the advantage of first-hand experience of hisher own subject i.e. hirnlherself. The problem that the author faces is that of striking a balance between sounding too modest or too aggressive. What are the other types of autobiographies? There are religious autobiographies like St. Augustine's Confessions (circa AD 397 to AD 401) and intellectual ones such as J.S. Mill's Autobiography (1873). (Mill's autobiography .was published posthumously). Fictionalized autobiographies like James Joyce's Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man (1916) transpose the actual experiences of the author onto a fictional plane and as such do not come under the category of non-fictional prose. Autobiography and Memoir An autobiography is distinct from a memoir. As Roy Pascal put it. 'In the autobiography, proper attention is focused on the self, in the memoir or reminiscence on others' (Design and Truth in Autobiography RKP, 1960, p. 5). These two forms may be found in the same book or even the same page. But the difference lies in the focus. In an autobiography the emphasis is always on the self, It is clear that the individual does not live outside society. And thus even in an autobiography, it is essential to portray people and places. But in general the interest remains mainly on the self. Biography and Autobiography: Differences 1) In autobiography, childhood is portrayed prominently. On the other hand, in biography the author concentrates on the active period of the individual especially hislher success. 2) The biographer places special emphasis on the death of the individual while in an autobiography, needless to say, death does not figure at all. 3) Autobiographies often feature the relationship with parents ,and siblings. Biographies, on the other hand, deal with relationships with friends and colleagues who directly or indirectly contributed to the person's success. Non-Fictional Prose-11: 4) A biographer has to rely on external evidence. He may have a close Biography, relationship with the subject. Or he may reconstruct hisher life by Autobiography, Diary culling evidence from documents, diaries and letters. An and Speeches autobiographer does not need to rely on such evidence. She can take recourse to hisher memory. 5) The main difference, as we know, lies in the point of view. In a biography the life is recreated by a third person narrator, who may or may not be objective. In an autobiography, the first person narrator is mainly subjective. Why do we read Autobiographies? The reasons for reading autobiography are as manifold as those for reading biography. One reason could be curiosity and the other could be the desire to gain insight into the lives of people like ourselves. Another could be simply delight in the book as a work of art. Autobiography, as you know is the most personal of literary forms. What are the ways of reading autobiography? One can read it as a historical record or as a work of art. A literary autobiography is read as a work of art. Here one would keep in mind the idea behind the writing. For example, how does the writer perceive hisher own nature and development and how does she give form to this perception? To put it simply, how does she shape hisher material? Another relevant question at this point would be: how effectively does she use language to convey hisher experience to the reader? An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with' Truth is the autobiography of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (or Mahatma Gandhi) and covers his life from early childhood through to 1920. It was initiated at the instance of Swami Anand, Jeramdas and other close co-workers of Gandhi, in his mother-tongue Gujarati entitled SatyanG Prayogo athvii Jtmakathii published in two volumes - Vol. I in 1927 and Vol. I1 in 1929. It was translated into English by Mahadev Desai and first appeared serially in Young India before being published in book form. In this unit you are going to read three short chapters from Part I11 of Mahatma Gandhi7s autobiography, which describe his month long stay with Gokhale in Bengal when he was on a visit to India from South Africa in 1901 in order to plead his cause for improving the condition of Indians settled in South Africa. You must remember that at this time in his life, Gandhi did not have the title of 'Mahatma' nor had he yet conceived of the idea of an independent India or of becoming a national leader in this cause. At the tim2 of which you will read, he was a loyal British subject, a young lawyer in South Africa, who had been struck by the injustice meted out to the Indixs there. So you will gain some insight into the making of a great leader and get a glimpse of some of the important people who influenced and shaped his thoughts. Read the text carefully. You may not know about some of the places and people mentioned but give an uninterrupted first reading. You may consult the glossary later in subsequent readings. Check Your Progress 1 M.K. Gandhi's :An Autobiography or The Answer the following questions in about 100 words each. Story of My Experiments with Truth 1) What is autobiography? Name some forms of autobiography. ................................................................................. ................................................................................. ................................................................................. ................................................................................. ................................................................................. ................................................................................. ................................................................................. What are the differences between biography and autobiography? .................................................................................... .................................................................................... .................................................................................... .................................................................................... .................................................................................... .................................................................................... .................................................................................... ................................................................................. ....................................................................................
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