There have been several aspects of ASTU 100 that have allowed me to develop new ideas, opinions, and perspectives on certain topics. The main focus of our year was autobiography, and I found that working with archives was very interesting for me because it allowed me to see what limits autobiographical representation in history.

For the archives group project, my group chose to discuss the letters Gilean Douglas, a woman who pursued a life as a writer in the wilderness, received from the fans of her writings. It was amazing to see how immensely gratuitous both men and women were to her works for allowing them to identify with the unconventional aspects of her life and character (Gilean Douglas Fonds). Although this was the case, these men and women addressed Grant Madison in their letters, which is the pseudonym that Douglas used to publish her work (Gilean Douglas Fonds).  In contemporary times, women writing under the pseudonym of male names continues to occur. For example, Joanne Kathleen Rowling, who used the initials J.K. Rowling to publish her Harry Potter series, also using the pseudonym Robert Galbraith to publish her detective series. I enjoyed reading the Harry Potter series as a child, and when I learned that Robert Galbraith was a pseudonym Rowling had employed for her more recent work, I wondered to what extent Rowling’s work beneath a male guise versus a female guise managed to secure more sales.

Before I was registered in ASTU, I believed that this choice was representative of the limited agency of the female writer.  Referring specifically to Gilean Douglas, I was at first disheartened by her compulsion, driven by the need to acquire a wider readership, to represent her books through a male identity. Working with the Gilean Douglas fond, however, I realized that Rodney Carter’s work on silences within archives could be integral to understanding the power of self-representation in autobiographical histories.  The fact that Douglas chose to adopt a pseudonym is essentially representative of the inequality experienced by women in literature. Douglas identifies a silent epidemic— the epidemic present within the professional market that restricts the careers of women— and successfully “nam[es]…the silence, subverts it, draws attention to it” (Carter 222). Reading Douglas’ fan letters within her fond, I found that I could see a value in her fan letters highlighting the contrast between her actual identity and her chosen identity.  Ultimately, Douglas’ use of a pseudonym as a form of self-representation established her feminist autobiographical history.

I had never before considered that silence could play a powerful role in interactions between the state and civil society. In general, ASTU has compelled me to read narratives more critically and ask how they are being framed within a public context, allowing me to garner more about what they represent.

Works Cited:

Carter, Rodney G.S. “Of Things Said and Unsaid: Power, Archival Silences, and Power in Silence.” Archivaria 61, 2006, pp. 215-33, http://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/12541. Accessed 25 February 2017.

“Gilean Douglas Fonds.” UBC Library, http://rbscarchives.library.ubc.ca/index.php/gilean-douglas-fonds. Accessed 16 March 2017.

In “Power, Archival Silences, and Power in Silence,” Rodney Carter discusses how natural silences “entered into by choice” (Carter 228) can be utilised in a way that allows minority groups to situate themselves within archival memory.  I observe that Carter’s examination of silence in archives can be equated to “natural silences” within autobiography. Discarding the traditional view of autobiography as a book of prose documenting the experiences of the writer, autobiographical content appears to be embodied in various forms of self-representation as well. For example, Fred Wah categorizes his book Diamond Grill as biofiction— an autobiographical account enhanced through the elaboration of experiences and the use of varied writing styles (Wah 184-85). Wah weaves poetry, prose, and recipes together to produce an array of anecdotes. These anecdotes coalesce to fabricate a relational story of his struggle to address the hyphens the exist between his Chinese-Swedish-Canadian identity. The narrative is disjointed because of the unconventional writing style, but I propose that this disjointedness behaves as a natural silence. Wah’s story contains areas within which the obscurity of his poetic use metaphorically represents the hyphenation he has endured throughout his life. In the “Afterword” of Diamond Grill, Wah reveals numerous concepts behind the book. He discusses “doors and their hinges [as] material to the implicit metaphors of hyphenation” (179) and the “long sentence on the Chinese Head Tax (see p.130)…as an attempt to dislodge the privilege of the (complete) sentence” (185).  His writing possesses the voices of the immigrant population, but the mysterious nature of their silence compels the reader to dig deeper into the text and realize this on their own.

Reflecting on the comments Wah made regarding his narrative, I can see similar features in other forms of artistic expression. For example, Jessica Stewart’s blog post “Interview: Photographer Explores Own Depression with Surreal Self-Portraits,” discusses the work of photographer Janelia Mould in her series Melancholy: A Girl Called Depression. Mould creates evocative self-portraits that have been modified by the removal of her head, and often certain limbs. She says that her goal was “to give a glimpse on how a person with depression might experience life, through creating a character that never feels fully complete.” Her work is obscure, and yet it shares an autobiographical account of her experience with depression. Her depression lies silent beneath the images, but the images as a whole depict a population struggling to challenge stigmas and the lost parts of themselves.

Both Wah and Mould implement artistic forms of self-expression within their work, creating autobiographies that are heavily textured and multi-faceted. They behave as emotional outlets through which the audience can attempt to better understand the experiences of the artist. Like poetry, painting, and dance, the artist remains silent, however, they are present within each line, brushstroke, and movement. By having these natural silences within autobiographical work, the reader and viewer can actually feel the emotion, instead of merely seeing it. This effectively grants power to those who may be lacking representation.

Works Cited

Carter, Rodney G.S. “Of Things Said and Unsaid: Power, Archival Silences, and Power in Silence.” Archivaria 61, 2006, pp. 215-33, http://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/12541. Accessed 25 February 2017.

Wah, Fred. Diamond Grill: 10^th Anniversary Ed. Edmonton: NeWest, 2006.

Stewart, Jessica. “Interview: Photographer Explores Own Depression with Surreal Self-Portraits.” My Modern Met, 10 March 2017, http://mymodernmet.com/janelia-mould-conceptual-photography-depression. Accessed 19 March 2017.

Time capsules offer a diverse array of archival opportunities for individuals or groups interested in introducing future generations to present-day society. Though they may vary in structure and format—  from the traditional steel tomb buried for centuries containing newspaper clippings and old photographs to the Voyager and Voyager II spacecraft (Novak)— time capsules are an opportunity for anyone to create a monument to personal or collective history.  The opportunistic nature of the traditional time capsule is immense considering that anyone can construct an archive. This is of particular importance when acknowledging that many groups experience little or no representation within society. Rodney Carter discusses the role of marginalized groups— those who are silenced by oppression or those who choose to engage in active silence as a form of resistance— within state archives. He suggests that minority groups “establish their own archives or other memory institutions…within their own communities, locally, nationally, and internationally, to preserve and share their own stories” (Carter 231). Time capsules are one such “memory institution” that provide an archival opportunity for these marginalized groups.

Though this may be the case, certain unintentional time capsules, such as archeological sites like the ancient city of Persepolis (Parsa), contain unpremeditated artifacts reflecting past human lives; in other words, no citizen was able to choose what survived as a remembrance for their existence. I wonder if the unintentional nature of this archive provides an opportunity for marginalized groups to secure a role within society better than archives designed explicitly for future generations.

Marjane Satrapi’s graphic narrative Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood describes her experience growing up in Iran during the Iranian Revolution (1978-79) and the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88). Although the life narrative alludes to the ancient city of Persepolis subtly— usually within familial stories transferred orally to a young Satrapi— there is a distinct connection to the city’s significance within the larger context of the autobiography. In my last blog post, I emphasized that the title of the graphic narrative is intended to connect the reader to Satrapi’s fundamentally Persian (Iranian) identity. In the context of archives, the city of Persepolis is an archive employed by Satrapi to emphasize the importance of the marginalized (although not by numbers) Persian population in Iran during the period within which her narrative was written. The Arab conquest of Persia in the 7^th century introduced Islam to the Persian people (Farhamy 25). In a modern-day perspective, the Iranian revolution, for many Iranians, involved the idea of establishing an Islamic state (25).  Satrapi, although she clearly distinguishes her family as active demonstrators opposed to the Shah’s regime, she also identifies her family as one of Persian intellectuals unwilling to revert back to a government system based on the Islamic religion. Satrapi uses the city of Pesepolis as archival evidence to demonstrate the great history that constitutes (a now marginalized) Persian heritage— a great history that was muddled by the Arab conquest of Persia.

Therefore, Carter may describe this archive, although an unintentional time capsule, as having the ability to resist the power wielded by the dominant groups within society. He might say that the ancient city of Persepolis, as utilised by Satrapi within her text, behaves as a “silent” resistor to the hegemonic frames created by Islamic principles (introduced by the Arab conquest of Persia) during the turmoil within Iran.  Carter may argue that Persepolis is a form of resistance because its discussion within the life narrative notes that “conflicting interests exist,” which is just as important as directly “imped[ing] the wishes of the opposing forces” (Carter 228).

When examining traditional time capsules, like the Westinghouse time capsule created in New York City in 1939, a state established archive tends to appear (Andrews). The Westinghouse time capsule was established by the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company and is to be opened in 6939 A.D. (Andrews). This time capsule contains artifacts that are representative of a white population (Andrews).  There are no artifacts that would indicate the issues of slavery within America, nor act as a reminder of the poverty experienced by many during the Great Depression. The Westinghouse time capsule provides a white perspective promoted by the hegemonic white class within the American government and business. On the other hand, the archival work that the city of Persepolis does actually represents a marginalized world, providing important information that would likely have been forgotten to Iranian society, making the archeological site of Persepolis nobler in its duties to all members of society. Therefore, it appears that in this situation, unintentional archives like archeological sites may provide a more accurate depiction of society because there is no opportunity to select what image is to be represented to future generations.

Works Cited

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (vol 1). New York: Pantheon, 2004.

Farhamy, Lisa. “Iranian Nationalism.” The Public Purpose, vol. 5, pp. 19-30, https://www.american.edu/spa/publicpurpose/upload/Iranian-Nationalism.pdf. Accessed 26 February 2017.

Carter, Rodney G.S. “Of Things Said and Unsaid: Power, Archival Silences, and Power in Silence.” Archivaria 61, 2006, pp. 215-33, http://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/12541. Accessed 25 February 2017.

Andrews, Evan. “8 Famous Time Capsules.” History, 7 March 2016, http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/8-famous-time-capsules. Accessed 26 February 2017.

Novak, Matt. “What is a Time Capsule?” Paleoffuture, 1 December 2015, http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/what-is-a-time-capsule-1531521900. Accessed 25 February 2017.

Persepolis is a graphic narrative describing Marjane Satrapi’s life growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution (1978-79) and the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88).  Persepolis, in historical terms, is the Greek term to describe the ancient city of Parsa, the “City of the Persians,” that lies on the outskirts of modern day Shiraz in Iran (Ancient History Encyclopedia). It was founded by Darius the Great in 518 BCE, and its ruins remain today as a valuable archeological site (Ancient History Encyclopedia).  When reading Satrapi’s Persepolis, I was curious as to what the title was alluding to because I had never heard of the ancient city prior to reading her narrative. Her choice of title is an interesting one, and many arguments can be made as to why she chose to use this ancient city of 518 BCE to compare her experience of living within a war-torn, fundamentalist Iran in the 1980s. Speculatively, for example, the defeat of the city of Parsa by Alexander the Great in 330 BCE (Ancient History Encyclopedia) mirrors the decline of Iranian society in the 1980s as a consequence of political upheaval.  I am interested specifically, however, in how the chapter “Persepolis” in Satrapi’s narrative, exposes the juxtaposition between old and new, traditional and contemporary as it relates to memory within Satrapi’s text. In her article “The Texture of Retracing in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis,” Hillary Chute describes how Satrapi uses her narrative to demonstrate the system of memory. The chapter “Persepolis” exemplifies this concept and produces a timeline of memory that reiterates the importance of remembering in developing a critical sense of self.

The chapter “Persepolis” opens up with Marji’s grandmother describing the negative impacts the reign of the Shah and the persecution of her husband had on the social status of her family. She also describes the historical implications of the Shah’s regime in Iran. Notably, the captions that accompany many of the frames in the beginning of this section are dialogue from her grandmother, not the reflective voice of Marjane— the older and reflective Marji (Chute 97)— that tends to characterize these captions.  Like the ancient city of Parsa where memories are contained within the crevices of old stone, Marji’s grandmother represents memory in its most traditional form: captured within the foundations of bodies battered by time. As the chapter progresses, Marji describes how her father, although it was strictly forbidden, takes photographs of demonstrators during the revolution. One evening he arrives home sharing stories of the events that he witnessed during the day. Marji is introduced to the concept of creating memories within this context. The pictures her father takes are a monument to memory, and they will help the next generations of Iranians form a memory for the events that occurred during this period. Essentially, they are contemporary memories encased within the modern technology (photographs) of that period. Marji, at the end of the chapter, is confused as to why her father, mother, and grandmother are laughing when discussing serious topics like death.  She arrives at the realization that she understands very little and therefore must read as many books as she can.  For her to belong to the world of Iran that adults belong to, she must develop memories from the stories contained within those around her and the knowledge she develops through the memory captured within books.  Essentially, this chapter “presents the procedure…of memory” (Chute 97) that is present in many aspects of the text.

Altogether, I suggest that Satrapi demonstrates the critical nature of remembering by titling her narrative Persepolis.  By reminding the reader that memory spans many generations, Satrapi emphasizes the significance of memory in identity by reminding the reader of the various forms of history— from the ancient city of Parsa to the Islamic Revolution— that help develop the character of Marji and other Iranians.

Mark, Joshua. “Persepolis.” Ancient History Encyclopedia, 2 September 2009, http://www.ancient.eu/persepolis. Accessed 12 January 2017.

Chute, Hillary. “The Texture of Retracing in Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis”.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 36.1/2, Witness (2008): 92-110. Print.

In her memoir Missing Sarah: A Memoir of Loss, Maggie de Vries tells the story of Sarah de Vries, her adopted sister, by sharing journal entries, family history, and the stories of those who had known Sarah throughout her life. Sarah de Vries was a sex worker, drug addict, and one of the missing and murdered women who had disappeared from the Downtown Eastside in the late 1990s. Through a slow investigation process, the Vancouver police department discovered that the many women who had disappeared in the Downtown Eastside were killed by Robert Pickton, a serial killer who lived in Port Coquitlam, BC. Pickton brutally murdered these women, and ultimately faced twenty-six first degree murder charges, although he was only convicted of six.  Serial killers are often associated with antisocial personality disorder, a psychological disorder that many convicted criminals who have committed the most heinous crimes have been diagnosed with. De Vries gives Sarah and other silenced sex workers and drug addicts— people society discards as unworthy— a voice. The question I ask is what voice sociopaths, in other words, those suffering from antisocial personality disorder, have in life writing when societal stigmatization interferes with their self-representation just as it does with missing and murdered women.

Antisocial personality disorder is a mental illness where a person lacks a conscience and consequently appears host to many “evil” qualities. For example, people diagnosed with this disorder seek power and manipulate people with cunning charm and wit to acquire that power (Mayo Clinic). They are indifferent to right and wrong, pathological liars, unempathetic, hostile, and impulsive (Mayo Clinic). They have a tendency to partake in criminal behaviour and a tendency to perceive themselves as superior to others (Mayo Clinic). Psychologists have speculated over how this illness develops for decades, and they have arrived at two hypotheses. The first hypothesis is that sociopaths do not experience fear as everyone else does, and hence pursue their illegal and inappropriate behaviour unfazed by the threat of punishment (Lilienfield). The second hypothesis is that sociopaths tend to be underaroused, and in order to achieve emotional stimulation they pursue actions that create excitement (Lilienfeld).

Regardless of the symptoms and causes of this mental disorder, there are limited resources available to understand this illness, as many suffering from this illness have not represented themselves in a personal narrative. However, I managed to find one memoir that proves a testament to sociopaths. Psychology Today actually features excerpts from M.E. Thomas’ The Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight, a memoir that chronicles the experiences and thoughts of a successful lawyer who has been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. Reading these passages, there are many alarming aspects of the author’s emotional state that emerge, but at the same time, there are various positive qualities that emerge as well. Her blunt vulnerability and intimacy are very powerful tools employed in the following excerpts:

 “An image sprang to mind: my hands wrapped around his neck, my thumbs digging deep into his throat, his life slipping away under my unrelenting grasp. How right that would feel.”

“Do you ever find yourself using charm and confidence to get people to do things for you that they otherwise wouldn’t? Some might call it manipulation, but I like to think I’m using what God gave me.”

 “The only physical contact I sought usually entailed violence. The father of a friend in grade school had to pull me aside and sternly ask me to stop beating his daughter. She was a skinny, stringy thing with a goofy laugh, as if she were asking to be slapped. I didn’t know that I was doing something bad. It didn’t even occur to me that it would hurt her or that she might not like it.”

“The first recurring dream I can remember was about killing him with my bare hands. There was something thrilling about the violence of it, smashing a door into his head repeatedly, smirking as he fell motionless to the floor.”

“I stole from the lost and found, saying I lost a book, but then I would take the “found” book to the bookstore and sell it. Or, I’d take an unlocked bike that sat in the same place for days. Finders, keepers.”

“I am an accomplished attorney and law professor, a well-respected young academic who regularly writes for law journals and advances legal theories. I donate 10 percent of my income to charity and teach Sunday school for the Mormon Church. I have a close circle of family and friends whom I love and who very much love me.”

“I think my sociopathy was triggered largely because I never learned how to trust.”

 “Everyone is a sinner, and I never felt that I was outside this norm.”

 “But I am functionally a good person—I bought a house for my closest friend, I gave my brother $10,000, and I am considered a helpful professor. I love my family and friends. Yet I am not motivated or constrained by the same things that most good people are.”

Ultimately, the reader receives personal qualities that society would sort into either positive or negative categories from Confessions of a Sociopath. Though Thomas manages to humanize herself, albeit slightly, midst many of her demonic qualities, I fear that readers, because of the work of publishing companies, will focus on the negative conduct she documents within her memoir with the same reverence that people pursue a psychologically thrilling movie or novel.  In her article “Introduction: Word Made Flesh,” Gillian Whitlock discuss how autobiography is a “soft weapon.” “Softness” implies malleability, and in regards to autobiographies, malleability is created by publishing companies that use “a careful manipulation of opinion and emotion in the public sphere” (3) to develop the viewpoints of an audience. G.T. Couser, in his article “Rhetoric and Self-Representation in Disability Memoir,” describes how the disabled “may be granted access to the literary marketplace on the condition that their stories conform to preferred plots and rhetorical schemes” (33). Schaffer and Smith, in their article “Conjunctions: Life Narratives in the Field of Human Rights,” discuss how human rights life narratives are dependent on “a Western-based publishing industry, media, and readership…[which] affects the kinds of stories published and circulated, the forms these stories take, and the appeals they make to an audience” (11). Though these scholarly articles are not referring to mental health life narratives, they make it clear that publishing companies attempt to create stories that appeal to a certain audience. In today’s world, a fascination for evil proliferates in the televisions shows we watch, the video games we play, and the books we read. I did not read Confessions of a Sociopath in its entirety, so I am not aware of how exactly M.E. Thomas was portrayed for the most part. I am certain that she presented herself without regard to societal expectations because of her mental state, but I recognize that editing is a form of enhancement. Hence, there remains a degree of uncertainty to how accurately these writers will be able to represent themselves amid publishing companies who are primarily interested in profit.

I am not saying that we should sympathize with Robert Pickton, but I believe there is a purpose in highlighting the fact that sociopaths are also a silenced people. Mental illness is still stigmatized in today’s world, but we do see more life narratives emerging from people who have suffered, for example, from depression, schizophrenia, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. To better understand people and the world around us, we need to be open to hearing the many perspectives of every citizen, sociopaths and all, because fundamentally we are all human. Altogether, we must be wary of how societal standards continue to shape our perceptions.

“Antisocial Personality Disorder.” Mayo Clinic, 2 April 2016, http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/dxc-20198978. Accessed 20 November 2016.

“Confessions of a Sociopath.” Psychology Today, 9 June 2016, https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201305/confessions-sociopath.  Accessed 20 November 2016.

Couser, G. Thomas. “Rhetoric and Self-Representation in Disability Memoir.” Signifying Bodies: Disability in Contemporary Life Writing. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan UP, 2009. 33.

De Vries, Maggie. Missing Sarah: A Memoir of Loss. Toronto, Penguin, 2008.

Lilienfeld, Scott, et al. Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding. New Jersey, Pearson Education Inc., 2016. Print. 594-595.

Schaffer, Kay and Sidonie Smith. “Conjunctions: Life Narratives in the Field of Human Rights.” Biography 27.1 (2004): 11. Print.

Whitlock, Gillian. “Introduction: Word Made Flesh.” Soft Weapons: Autobiography in Transit. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2007. 3.

Gender inequality remains prevalent in many aspects of Canadian society. The subtle way in which stereotyping and gender roles emerge in mainstream discussions, specifically through the media representation of women, exposes the disparity between genders that remains despite the various feminist movements of the 20th century. Yasmin Jiwani and Mary Lynn Young in their scholarly article “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse” discuss how murdered and missing women are addressed in the media. They reveal how missing and murdered women are only visible if they are mothers, daughters, wives, and sisters. They explain that missing and murdered women receive empathetic responses from the public only if they adopt the societal roles that are deemed respectable and “humanizing.” Anne Theriault, the blogger on The Belle Jar, argues on her blog post “I Am Not Your Wife, Sister, or Daughter” that women are not viewed as people, but exist only as possessions belonging to male counterparts when they are constantly outfitted with titles like “mother, daughter, wife, and sister” within the media.

In sociology class, I watched Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk “The Danger of a Single Story.” In her discussion, Adichie describes how race can develop from a “single story,” or in other words from the adoption of a single, falsely “all-encompassing” perspective of one society within another society. She argues that people, countries, and cultures have multiple facets, and that to associate characteristics with people based on a single stereotype is an ineffective way of understanding the world. For example, she explains how the West tends to view Africans through a lens of pity that morphs Africans into impoverished and uncivilized beings completely separate from developed society. She explains that this is because Westerners only hear about the catastrophes surround the political, economic, and social realms of Africa.

The “single story” is, essentially, the product of stereotypes founded on single sources of information.  Aside from race, I wonder how the “single story” establishes how women are perceived today. I ask why women develop as beings with dimensionality only in context to their relationships with men, as highlighted in the blog post “I Am Not Your Wife, Sister, or Daughter.” I wonder how sex trade workers receive less attention as individual people than Robert Pickton and other serial killers, who are investigated as actual people through media systems centered on sensationalism.

If we focus on the media representation of women, as both Theriault’s blog post and Jiwani and Young do, there are various aspects of society that we can target as being detrimental to gender equality and producing a negative “single story” for women. In sociology class, we were introduced to the documentary Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising’s Image of Women, which featured Jean Kilbourne, an activist who has focused on the presentation of women in advertising since the 1970s. One explanation for the “single story” that infects society’s perception of women, based on Jean Kilbourne’s research, is the objectification of women within the advertising industry. Women are often presented as possessions of men in advertisements. It is not unusual for a woman to be presented as the actual bottle of alcohol or the actual car being advertised. By turning women into “things” and “objects” Kilbourne describes how a situation is created where women are stripped of character and subjective experience, hence promoting violence against women. She goes on to illustrate how ads feature women with their hands covering their mouths and how ads force women to adopt other passive and vulnerable poses that make it seem as though they exist only for men, that they need to be taken care of by men, and that they cannot be independent. This provides a possible explanation as to why society so often refers to women in context to men. Kilbourne also uncovers how the increased presentation of violent images within the media, presenting men as powerful and dominant, connects masculinity with violence and desensitizes society towards violence, influencing people to blame victims and sensationalize violent acts.

Ultimately, the “single story” that is produced and that characterizes women is one that reflects media’s representation of women, whether that be through advertising or other means. We live in a society that treats women as objects, which makes them possessions of men, which helps to create the constant refrain “mother, wife, daughter, sister” that Theriault is exhausted by. We live in a society that supports violence and victimization. Images in the media that present women as weak and helpless and men as powerful and intelligent makes it easy to blame women for their “mindless ways,” creating a culture that criticizes women for relying on prostitution as an occupation, without acknowledging that men are the ones supporting this lifestyle. This develops a sentiment for victim blaming that we see in Jiwani and Young’s article. The “single story” that classifies women in today’s society proves detrimental to current equality issues, for example, workplace equality. Women, viewed through a lens that declares them incapable, overly emotional, sensitive, and “eye candy” inhibits the ability of women to pursue high level positions within companies. The “single story” that detracts from the potential of women as contributing and important additions to society needs to be altered. Women are human beings who can establish identities of their own and do not need to adopt the lifestyles dictated to them by biased media representations.

Work Cited:

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. “The Danger of a Single Story.” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, July 2009, https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en#t-9800. Accessed 6, November 2016.

Jhally, Sut, Jean Kilbourne, and David Rabinovitz. Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising’s Image of Women. Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation, 2010.

Jiwani, Yasmin and Mary Lynn Young. “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse.” Canadian Journal of Communication 31.4 (2006): 895-917.

Theriault, Anne. “I Am Not Your Wife, Sister or Daughter.” The Belle Jar. https://bellejar.ca/2013/03/18/i-am-not-your-wife-sister-or-daughter. Accessed 6 November 2016.

Many efforts have been extended to raise the self-esteem of men and women who have become victims to the unattainable beauty standards established by the fashion and film industry.  The Dove Self-Esteem Project was created to help young women acquire confidence amid these influences. Classrooms often discuss the social pressures contrived from television, magazines, and advertising that are dependent on editing technologies.  In a society bombarded by confidence diminishing forces, it is difficult to imagine that we may actually view ourselves in a better light than others view us in. The Scientific American does an excellent job of summarizing “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Enhancement in Self-Recognition,” a research study, and contrasting the findings to the Dove Real Life Sketches video in order to demonstrate the effects of self-enhancement. The Dove Real Life Sketches video showcases how women tend to attribute negative qualities, while acquaintances tend to emphasize beautifying qualities, to their appearance. On the other hand, the study “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Enhancement in Self-Recognition” demonstrates our tendency to perceive our physical appearance more positively than the general public perceives our physical appearance.  In the study completed by Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago and Erin Whitchurch of the University of Virginia, participants were asked to identify their own image in an array of images that had been altered to produce physically enhanced and physically reduced versions of the original image. When asked which picture was the original, unchanged version of themselves, participants continually chose one of the images that had been altered to appear more attractive.  When asked to identify a stranger’s image amid a sequence of physically altered images, the participant selected the unaltered version.  The article in the Scientific American continues on to describe the various instances in which people are inclined to present themselves as more likely to “engage in a desirable behaviour” as a consequence of the psychological phenomenon of self-enhancement.

This article was intriguing to me because many disability memoirs describe how the public address their disabilities, and how the actions of the non-disabled in response to the disabled confirm the discriminatory propensity of society. For example, in Ryan Knighton’s Cockeyed, Knighton describes how certain “Stumps” and “Jiggers” do not know how to behave when crossing paths with a blind man. Jason DaSilva portrays in one of his video blogs, “When I Walk Journal,” how “The Motivators” and “The Movers” rely on their conventional preconceptions of disability to determine the best way of assisting DaSilva climb stairs. “The Motivators” view his disability as something that can and should be overcome, and “The Movers” view his disability as something that needs to be controlled, ultimately breeding pity for the disabled DaSilva (Couser, 33-34). Stella Young’s blog, “We’re Not Here for Your Inspiration” describes “inspiration porn”— images, accompanied by a motivational caption, displaying people with disabilities completing regular activities— as a method of cultivating appreciation and gratitude in the hearts of the able-bodied.  Young describes the objectification of the disabled further as she explains how people commend her for “simply existing.” She is disgusted by the attitude of a public that does not comprehend that her life is not an obstacle, but a reality that needs to be worked with.

The truth is, that these individuals who are interacting with the authors of these memoirs are, like me, oblivious to their ignorance. The way the non-disabled behave around the disabled is conditioned by a society that does not stop to listen to the handicapped, but regards them as an exotic species. As a reader of life narratives, you are prepared to examine the writer beneath a spotlight, but you are not prepared for the writer to turn the spotlight on you.  It is an uncomfortable experience realizing that you are guilty of the same erroneous behaviour as those around you. It is disconcerting to think that self-enhancement has allowed me to interpret my actions as being better than those around me.  In actuality, my actions exhibit various forms of bias towards disabled people.

Connecting disability life narratives to the psychological implications of self-enhancement helps me understand aspects of autobiographical work, by permitting me to answer the following question:

How does self-enhancement influence the reader of life narratives?

There will always be accusations of self-enhancement directed at the narrator of autobiographical work. Attempting to present ourselves as admirably as possible is understandable; it is a human trait and necessary in an evolutionary perspective (Scientific American). We see it with Anne Frank’s diary and the corrections she made to the original text when the prospect of publication was dangled before her.  But the way the reader consumes a text is influenced by his or her own self-enhancement. Reading is always a learning opportunity, and allowing a closed mindset to limit what we learn damages our ability to develop and grow into well-rounded individuals. As a reader, we must avoid thinking that we are immune to, or unaffected by, the power society wields in regards to our individuality, or lack thereof. We are chiseled and sculpted to conform to societal standards, thus deflecting us from achieving any actual esteem. The belief that we are better than the world actually deems us to be is great in some ways, as long as we are aware that we have a lot to learn from those around us.

Altogether, it is critical that a reader balance their self-enhancement with openness in order to read autobiography with a non-judgmental eye and a mind that is willing to understand perspective and acquire a complete experience of the text. Life narratives are not all about the narrator, but about the interactions of the narrator with a society that we are very much a part of, and this must be acknowledged.

Citations

Atasoy, Ozgun. “You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think.” Scientific American, May 21 2013, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/you-are-less-beautiful-than-you-think. Accessed 16, October 2016.

Couser, G. Thomas. “Rhetoric and Self-Representation in Disability Memoir.” Signifying Bodies: Disability in Contemporary Life Writing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan UP, 2009. 33-34.

DaSilva, Jason. “When I Walk Journal.” Youtube, April 2, 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M5SCmFFuKc&feature=youtu.be. Accessed 16, October 2016.

Dove US. “Dove Real Beauty Sketches.” Youtube, April 14, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=litXW91UauE. Accessed 16, October 2016.

Epley, and Erin Whitchurch. “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Enhancement in Self-Recognition.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2008. 1159-1169.

Knighton, Ryan. Cockeyed. Toronto: Penguin, 2006.

Young, Stella. “We Are Not Here for Your Inspiration.” Ramp Up, July 2, 2012, http://www.abc.net.au/rampup/articles/2012/07/02/3537035.htm. Accessed 16, October 2016.

The Diary of a Young Girl is an account of Anne Frank’s experience in hiding during the Holocaust.  Not only does her narrative provide an accurate representation of the challenges that faced the Jewish community during the Nazi regime, but her innermost thoughts and feelings are captured within the pages, illustrating her spirit and vivacity and portraying the legitimacy of the adolescent voice. Undoubtedly, reading the diary would allow an individual to extract information about Anne’s character and her story, but the peritextual evidence (the physical elements of the published autobiographical text) is indicative of Anne’s character and her story as well. Ultimately, the peritextual evidence prepares the reader for the contents of the text and strategically piques the reader’s interest to create a marketable book.

Firstly, the colour of the book is notable. The pale yellow cover is symbolic of various features of the narrative. For example, it provides immediate information about the year the diary was written. The pale yellow colour, similar to the pale yellow of aged paper, depicts a story describing times past. At the same time, the yellow of the cover and the red of the text on the cover can be analyzed to represent Anne’s character.  Yellow, particularly in literature, tends to symbolize happiness, intellect, and, curiosity (Color-meanings.com)– all of which are personality descriptors that reflect Anne’s character. When she writes in her diary that one should “go outside and try to recapture the happiness within yourself; think of all the beauty in yourself and in everything around you and be happy” (Frank, 7 March, 1994), her optimism secures contentment and peace within her heart, reinforcing her happy personality. Red appears to be suggestive of passion, love, and courage, but also depicts danger (Colour-meanings.com). Anne is in a perilous situation, but she manages to face the challenging circumstances with strength and ferocity. She describes it herself: “I know what I want, I have a goal, an opinion, I have a religion and love. Let me be myself and then I am satisfied. I know that I’m a woman, a woman with inward strength and plenty of courage” (Frank, 11 April 1944). Altogether, the colours utilized on the cover of the text permit the reader to establish conclusions on the context of the narrative– particularly the young writer’s character– without even reading the text itself.

Another observable feature that captures the reader’s attention are the capitalized words on the back cover claiming that this book is “the first complete and intimate version…” of Anne’s diary.  The summary on the back cover also asserts that the book is “a new edition enriched by many passages originally withheld by her father…”  This develops intrigue for the consumer, comparable to the intrigue that magazines and advertising companies manage to produce in consumers. Headlines in magazines and advertising that promise “new discoveries” and the “inside scoop” engage human psychology. The proposal that this particular book includes details that other readers do not have access to almost seems to mirror the idea of gossip (NPR). By manipulating the human folly of love for gossip, the capitalized statements compel the consumer to purchase the autobiographical text, because gossip, or “being in the know,” tends to garner a sense of belonging and social security that humans crave. By using this technique, publishers secure profits by making the book enticing, and therefore marketable.

Altogether, peritextual evidence generates many implications for narratives. The subtle suggestions scattered throughout the peritext that describe contextual detail, coupled with the covert methods of manipulation used to convince
the reader to choose that particular text, all contribute to the presentation of a narrative, and hence construct the foundation for the business of publication. In regards to The Diary of a Young Girl, colour and typeface are two components of the peritext that establish a certain impression for the reader.  In a society that says not to judge a book by its cover, the irony is that society is expected to do so; especially when all the efforts of publication staff are directed at breeding the correct physical features in order to cultivate a salable product.

Citations:

Frank, Anne. The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition. Doubleday, 1995.

Olesen, Jacob. Color Symbolism in Literature: What Do Colors Mean in Literature and Poetry? Color-Meanings.com, http://www.color-meanings.com/color-symbolism-in-literature-what-do-colors-mean-in-literature-and-poetry, Accessed 5 October, 2016.

Hamilton, Jon. Psst! The Human Brain is Wired for Gossip, NPR, http://www.npr.org/2011/05/20/136465083/psst-the-human-brain-is-wired-for-gossip, Accessed 5, October 2016.