Purposes of autobiographical writing for authors and readers

¶ … Larger Purpose: Autobigraphy

Autobiography: Not Simply the Telling of One's Own Story

The writing or even ghost writing of one's personal experience can simply be an attempt by one person to retell a story or stories of their own personal experience. Yet, to a large degree the work of autobiography serves greater purposes. Autobiography develops the idea of the value of the individual through personal expression, growth and demonstration of knowledge. Within autobiography an individual, either writer or reader may find their own place in their universe, through both differences and similarities.

An autobiography is a strange beast. While it offers unique access to the inner life of an individual from the perspective of the only person capable of assessing it, it is problematic precisely because the self-knowledge of first-person narrators is problematic. Autobiography also posits a coherent, defined self which occupies a position from which to look back and evaluate the life.

Powers 21)

Powers goes on to say that the trick of memory can often limit the development of truth in storytelling.

Yet, if we think about it at all, we are aware, being strangers in the cosmos, that every lived moment is simultaneously slipping into past time and rendering the notion of a stable self questionable.

(Powers 21)

Regardless of the questions that may be associated with the actual facts of the story, some would has us believe that there is only limited truth with regards to the development of a first person narrative (Couser), there is nearly always future value associated with the development and study of self description and narrative. Despite the limitations of self-view and even personal memory, autobiography serves as a window into the way others view themselves and the lives they have led, be they obscure or infamous.

An individual may wish to simply inform another of experiences of their own life, history and culture, for the growth of another. He or she may wish to express experiences to help explain to themselves and others their own current status and/or personal lifestyle. "Autobiography is the literary form, and democracy the political form, most congruent with this idea of a unique and autonomous self."

Couser 13) Yet, most certainly to a large degree the autobiographical work is associated with self-analysis.

Telling one's own side of the story is a practical outgrowth of autobiographical works and yet often the most compelling reasons for doing so have to do with the development of self. On a very informative internet sight a teacher discusses the value of the use of the genre of biography and autobiography as a tool to assist today's youth in greater self-awareness and development:

Writers] Students are looking for something, often they are looking for themselves. Often, they don't know where or how to look. The study of autobiography / biography with varied readings and activities based on their ethnic group and the ethnic groups of those around them can help to provide answers to the age-old questions of, "Who am I," "Where do I come from," and "Who do I want to be?" (Hylton (http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1988/3/88.03.09.x.html)

Hylton goes on to discuss the particular importance of the use of autobiography for the culturally diverse population that exists in the U.S. helping culturally diverse students define and redefine their own personal standing within the bicultural world of their elders and their peers. Cultural diversity, can be seen as a tool for personal growth or it can be seen as a limitation to personal and community development. Autobiography may bridge the gap between the positive and the negative by reaffirming the individual's power of the self and the value of their own experiences and their own lives, in all their uniqueness and even similarities to others.

An experience that a person has had may be so foreign to those who are living today, be they his or her ancestors or simply strangers living in another era to that which the writer has experienced that a writer may be compelled to redress the circumstances of their lives for the benefit of another's illumination. All writers, authors of fiction, of non-fiction or even something in between are to some degree teachers for future generations. The goal of nearly every author is to demonstrate the value of lived experiences. Though experience may define knowledge, that knowledge has only limited value if it goes unshared by others.

A writer may wish to either eulogize of even challenge experiences and practices that have occurred within his or her past. He or she may wish to further develop the thoughts and ideas that may have led him or her to the level of personal growth and success that they are now living.

Augustine's Confessions, which gave birth to autobiography as a genre, enunciated and simultaneously solved these problems. Describing its author's life up until his conversion to Christianity, the Confessions grounds Augustine's individual, mutable life in the unchanging nature of God: "I entered into the depths of my soul,... And with the eye of my soul, such as it was, I saw the Light that never changes casting its rays over the same eye of my soul, over my mind."

Powers 21) writer, Augustine as an example may even wish to express just how wrong their decisions were and how simply they could have, in hindsight been different. Challenging the self's historical motives, either known or unknown is a constant demonstration of a larger purpose for autobiography.