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Self-Narration 2 — Conditions, Representations, and Consequences

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Self-Narration 2 — Conditions, Representations, and Consequences Self-Narration 2 — Conditions, Representations, and Consequences N THEIR The Self We Live By: Narrative Identity in a Postmodern World, James A. Holstein and Jaber F. Gubrium put narrative at the I very centre of our everyday lives and identify three elements that are foundational to the formation of identity: “the process of storytelling, the re- sources used to tell stories, and the circumstances of narration.”1 The ele- ments listed by Holstein and Gubrium are in line with those I identify in the title of this chapter, particularly with my focus on ‘conditions of self-narra- tion’. Accordingly, I will look at the mutual rules that apply to constructing identity and self-narrative and how these two operations interact. Four pro- minent elements of self-representation that shape the self-narrations in Rhys’s work can be identified; first, the self-narrative impulse; second, the relation- ality of self-narration; third, already established ways of telling; and, fourth, the nature of obstructions placed in the path of self-expression. I argue that these four elements of self-narration in Rhys’s novels interact, resulting in particular consequences and narrative practices that help us gain an under- standing of the social conditions under which the self-narrator speaks. The first, self-narrative impulse, is a term I have borrowed from Janet Varner Gunn, who speaks about the ontological and temporal aspects of this impulse. She identifies what she calls ‘the autobiographical impulse’, con- tending that it “arises out of the effort to confront the problem of temporality and can be assumed operative in any attempt to make sense of experience.”2 The need to order past and future events in one’s mind, and to account for the 1 James A. Holstein & Jaber F. Gubrium, The Self We Live By: Narrative Identity in a Postmodern World (New York: Oxford UP, 2000): 215. 2 Janet Varner Gunn, Autobiography: Toward a Poetics of Experience (Philadel- phia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1982): 12. 14 NARRATING FROM THE MARGINS passage of time by recounting past events, is an impulse people give in to by means of narrative in various social contexts.3 ‘The problem of temporality’ is one that is to be tackled with the help of ‘the extended self’ – in Ulrich Neisser’s definition, “the self of memory and anticipation, the self existing continuously across time.”4 The extended self is what holds memory together and helps the individual anticipate future events.5 This self, through extending and refining its viewpoint over time, provides what Eakin calls “a temporal armature that supports and sustains our operative sense of who we are.”6 It is through this extended self that the narrator can claim his/her position as the autobiographical ‘I’ referred to by Gilmore and Gunn, and simultaneously inhabit the ‘I’ it is writing about. The concept of the extended self is of great consequence for a discussion of self-narration in Rhys, as it is a concept through which one can observe the dynamic interplay between, and in Rhys’s case often the conflation of, the narrating and narrated ‘I’ and between mem- ory and anticipation. While Gunn’s ‘problem of temporality’ explains why subjects engage in self-narration to a certain extent, I also look at the role of social interaction in this activity, what I have referred to as ‘relationality’. As underlined by Eakin, self-narration is ‘necessarily relational’7 and in his definition relational self- narration is a narrative through which an individual consciously constructs 3 This ‘accounting’ for one’s life, or even one lived day, can also be read for its moral implications. One’s day can be measured by how productive one has been and how much one has contributed to society or a cause – such as resistance to hege- monies, decolonization, etc. Apart from the quality of what has been achieved, the em- plotment of the action (the planning and recounting thereof) can also be monitored for its morality. As Michele L. Crossley reminds us, “story-telling is a pervasive activity and can be traced back to the ancient and still common practice of guiding moral behaviour through the reciting of parables and fables.” Crossley, Introducing Narrative Psychology: Self, Trauma and the Construction of Meaning (Milton Keynes: Open UP, 2000): 47. 4 Eakin, How Our Lives Become Stories, 114. 5 This, for Eakin, is one of the fundamental uses of memory, and the extended self is the operative element: “as an adaptive system, the general function of memory is to predict and prepare for future encounters, actions and experiences.” It is when the extended self does not function properly that these two operations fail and lead to what we perceive to be “narrative disorders” (114). 6 Eakin, How Our Lives Become Stories, 102. 7 How Our Lives Become Stories, 52. .
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