In a portion of my literature review, The child’s perspective of trauma within life narrative, I summarized a few scholar’s concepts of authenticity within this context. I had three scholars, Alexandra Lloyd, Gill Rye, and Hillary Chute discuss whether or not the child’s viewpoint can be authentic at all and what characteristics made it more or less so. The complex relationship between the adult author and the child narrator, effects of an overtly emotional narration on it’s own authenticity, and preservation of memory were all called into question.
As I was reading the articles, I never questioned the authority of these scholars to analyze the authenticity of these life narratives. Due to the author (writing trauma as seen by a child) no longer being a child, I believed it was understandable and logical to question the authenticity of the story. However, today in class (Nov.5th), Laurie made me re-think the concept of authenticity in life narrative. Who has the authority to determine what is authentic? When an author is telling someone else’s story, for example David Eggers in What is the What, there will always be issues of translation and mediation. Even if both contributors, the author and the real-life protagonist, speak the same language they may still run into problems with interpreting meaning. Mediation will naturally be an issue because life narratives are often edited in ways that will supposedly help them reach a larger audience. Even when an author is recounting their own experiences, their memory will never be 100% reliable. The authenticity of life narrative could be debated forever because there is no valid way to determine how truly authentic it is.
Are there any effective ways of measuring authenticity within life narrative? My belief is that unless someone is recounting their own experiences as they are happening and is being completely truthful, no other life narrative could be considered completely authentic. Even in that case, some aspects could be called into question. So, what is the point of debating authenticity at all? Perhaps it aids us in engaging with our critical thinking skills? On the opposite end of the spectrum, if we do not think critically about what we are reading, we are not actually doing our job as a reader. We should never take things at face value and blindly consume. Therefore, perhaps that best technique is to try to stand somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.
Take everything with a grain of salt, know that it may not be authentic, and consider the reasons as to why it may have purposely or accidentally been presented in that way. However do not scrutinize it to the point that you miss the bigger picture entirely. Questioning the authenticity of life narrative can have benefits for the reader but if taken too far will do more harm than good.