Memoir as a genre, focusing on Angelas Ashes
EL382 Freedom from Oppression: Literature that Changed the World
“The Invisible Irish”
Re-asserting literature from below: memoir as a means of establishing postcolonial identity and/or history.
2012, Mark: HD 90%
“Memory is not about recovering a past but about the production of possibility-memory is a recreation, not a looking backwards, but a reaching out to a horizon, somewhere 'out there '”.1 (Ben Okri)
This essay aims to introduce and address some of the ways in which memoir as a literary genre is a companion to postcolonial literature, in the sense that they both endorse and reinforce each other’s concerns. Memoir complements postcolonial concerns of re-assessing and re-asserting history from below, questioning and constructing identity, and lends itself to postcolonial incorporation of the oral tradition. This partnership can be explored in Frank McCourt’s memoir of his Irish upbringing Angela’s Ashes. McCourt’s memoir relocates Irish history in a personal sphere, and serves to give a voice to the “invisible Irish”- all the marginalised and oppressed Irish men, women, and children who fought on behalf of Ireland against the many forms of oppression that have threatened Irish culture and survival that are not recognised in official history books. An analysis of memoir in light of postcolonial concerns highlights as a powerful genre through which postcolonial people can fight for freedom from oppression.
Central to postcolonial literature is the notion of ‘re-asserting history from below’. Without challenging colonialist versions of history, the marginalised would be lost to history, and by definition be absent from authorative annuals.2 In the words of Jacqueline Bussie, “art has often creatively functioned to capture the perspectives of the marginalised when a state or other systemic powers denied such persons
“The Invisible Irish”
Re-asserting literature from below: memoir as a means of establishing postcolonial identity and/or history.
2012, Mark: HD 90%
“Memory is not about recovering a past but about the production of possibility-memory is a recreation, not a looking backwards, but a reaching out to a horizon, somewhere 'out there '”.1 (Ben Okri)
This essay aims to introduce and address some of the ways in which memoir as a literary genre is a companion to postcolonial literature, in the sense that they both endorse and reinforce each other’s concerns. Memoir complements postcolonial concerns of re-assessing and re-asserting history from below, questioning and constructing identity, and lends itself to postcolonial incorporation of the oral tradition. This partnership can be explored in Frank McCourt’s memoir of his Irish upbringing Angela’s Ashes. McCourt’s memoir relocates Irish history in a personal sphere, and serves to give a voice to the “invisible Irish”- all the marginalised and oppressed Irish men, women, and children who fought on behalf of Ireland against the many forms of oppression that have threatened Irish culture and survival that are not recognised in official history books. An analysis of memoir in light of postcolonial concerns highlights as a powerful genre through which postcolonial people can fight for freedom from oppression.
Central to postcolonial literature is the notion of ‘re-asserting history from below’. Without challenging colonialist versions of history, the marginalised would be lost to history, and by definition be absent from authorative annuals.2 In the words of Jacqueline Bussie, “art has often creatively functioned to capture the perspectives of the marginalised when a state or other systemic powers denied such persons
Bibliography: Bhabha, Homi K., “Introduction: Narrating a Nation”, in Nation and Narration, Homi K Bhabha (ed), Routledge, London, 2006, pp. 1-7. Brown, Megan, “The Memoir as Provocation: A Case for ‘Me Studies’”, College Literature, West Chester University, vol. 37(3), 2010, pp. 121-142. Bruss, Elizabeth W., Autobiographical Acts: The Changing Situation of a Literary Genre, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1976. Bussie, Jacqueline A., The Laughter of the Oppressed, T&T Clark International, New York, 2007. Eakin, Paul John, How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves, Cornell University Press, New York, 1999. McCourt, Frank, Angela’s Ashes, Harper Perennial, London, 2007. Okri, Ben, The Famished Road, Spectrum Books, Ibadan, 1992. Olney, James, Memory & Narrative the Wave of Life-Writing, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1998. Rushdie, Salman, “Notes on Writing and the Nation”, in Burn This Book, Tony Morrison (ed), Harper Collins, New York, 2009, pp. 78-83. Tyson, Lois, Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide, 2nd edn, Routledge, London, 2006.