William Gass 'Essay' The Art Of Self

William Gass’s says in his essay The Art of Self, discusses how “minorities should be promoted to major, and how sects gain possession of the holy” (43) Art of Self. This means that minorities deserve more respect and power than what they receive. While sects should gain sole possession of the holy, Gass references how non-minorities should get more respect and power than minorities. Another statement that connects to a previous comment written by Gass explains how some humans should let behavior speak for itself instead of just relying on non-verbal communication. Humans cannot determine a person by looking at their gait or how much swagger they have; they have to look at the person’s personality and inside emotions and behavior before anything
Gass presents memoirs as a type of egotistical way for author’s to exaggerate their lives in order to get attention, sympathy or financial gain. Even though in most cases memoirs are used to express one’s life that they have lived and talk about their difficulties they have had in their existence. Another important quotation in Gass’s Art of Self essay, is “fate cuts the cord, and the autobiographer dies in his bed of love, still high in the saddle of self” (46) Art of Self. Many people in today’s society and especially autobiographers write memoirs and non-fiction novels about themselves that are so exaggerated. That they are no longer considered to be memoirs or non-fiction novels, to die in a bed of love, are another way to explain that a person is extremely narcissistic and always just looks at themselves, as absolutely the best person ever. Most people do not want to die that way or be anyway involved in them to that
Gass is trying to explain how some people exaggerate their lives or come up with complete garbage to write about such as having achieving something that never happened or surviving an event that would not really be considered a disaster. Making a mountain out of a molehill would be a perfect example of what most authors try to do. Being in Hurricane Katrina and tropical storm are two different events. Just because you were in a tropical storm does not mean you survived a Hurricane Katrina type disaster. This would be a perfect example of making something more impressive than it needs to be. It could also be considered complete lying as well, because not everything in the event is true. In Wards memoir Men We Reaped, many bad events had happened throughout Ward’s life. Such as people dying in a hurricane, car accident and a drug related death. Living in a working class community in southern Mississippi can have its setbacks. Especially because studies have shown that black people in the south tend to lead rougher than lives than any other race. But some of the events in the book Men We Reaped tend to be overstated and may sound worse than they actually did. For almost anyone it would be extremely tragic mentally, physically and emotionally to lose so many close people in such a