The Power in Telling One's Story

Something that I have always found powerful is writing about my personal experiences in the format of a short memoir, journal, poem, etc.—as long as the feelings and emotions of the experience are felt when I read it back to myself.  It is therapeutic and part of a process where I allow myself to grieve, feel sad, angry, etc. and then move on—at least to where I am able to start focusing on other things.  I think there is tremendous power in telling your story.  It is a way to share an experience and to connect with others.  The American dream post got me thinking about how many different individual experiences we read this semester.  The memoir is no new development, but it has certainly served different purposes over the years as evident by the variety of texts I cover below.  It is a format that is often true to the individual writing it, a personal story is authentic and telling of the author.  

Some of the first pieces of literature we read as a class were personal in nature.  These historical accounts did not aim to compose a compelling narrative with a strong story arch.  However, in the 17^th century narratives became extremely popular, with the captivity narrative being an important subgenre.  These fantastical stories became known for telling the “truth” although how much was changed to suit these needs is debatable.  The stories served a clear purpose, as Mary Rowlandson’s own captivity narrative, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, indicates by its title alone.  The emotional struggles she experiences, like carrying her dyeing child and being separated from her husband and children, allow her to reflect on and connect to her faith.  Everything good that happens to her, in Rowlandson’s eyes, can be connected back to God.  The spiritual lens in which she writes her story makes clear her purpose—to witness the purpose of God.  It is interesting to witness such self-interest in a very personal narrative.  Rowlandson believes she was chosen to suffer and given mercy by God, but that it is a privilege to be afflicted by such suffering.  This elevation of her person puts her in a position to compare herself to biblical figures.

Despite also being written by a woman, Rebecca Harding Davis’ “Life in the Iron Mills,” takes a personal story and makes it about a larger issue.  Unlike Rowlandson, Davis is trying to send a message to encourage greater social awareness and incite social change.  She takes the reader down, “into the thickest of the fog and mud and foul effluvia” in order to illustrate class conflict in American society (Davis 909).   Although “Life in the Iron Mills” is not Davis’ story so exactly as The Sovereignty and Goodness of God is Rowlandson’s, her story contains the truth and real misery of America’s working class.  It allows the reader to connect with the “reality of soul-starvation, of living death, that meets you every day under that besotted faces on the street.” (914)  The intense descriptions of the iron mills and constant machine like imagery serve to impress upon the reader that the constant oppression of the lower classes left them so focused on acquiring their basic needs that they were blinded to the possibility of any social change. 

In Thoreau’s Walden, he lives out the epitome of the early American stereotype.  One of his first lines is “I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house I had built myself…” (Thoreau 666)  Despite the idealization of this situation, the initial part of the narrative speaks little of Thoreau’s living arrangements.  Instead he looks within to find powerful insight.  Being self-sufficient and living on his own terms are part of this powerful narrative.

Shifting to a true story, but one that is not the author’s own, Mark Twain’s—“A True Story, Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It”—showcases Twain’s ability to command a true story other than his own.  The use of strong dialect, forces the reader to pay more attention once the woman starts speaking.  This dialogue increases until she completely dominates the story and the reader forgets about the narrator.  The emphasis on truth throughout the story, and even in the title blends the line between the fiction Twain is so famous for and the woman’s narrative.  Twain uses the power of telling one’s story to tell someone else’s, and in turn the story becomes even more powerful given his background and his notoriety.   

Works Cited

Davis, Rebecca Harding. “Life in the Iron Mills.” The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Susan Belasco and Linck Johnson, Second ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2014. 908-935. Print.

Rowlandson, Mary. The Sovereignty and Goodness of God. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Susan Belasco and Linck Johnson, Second ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2014. 169-188. Print.

Thoreau, Henry David. Excerpts from Walden.  The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Susan Belasco and Linck Johnson, Second ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2014. 665-671. Print.

Twain, Mark. “A True Story, Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It.” The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Susan Belasco and Linck Johnson, Second ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2014. 1163-1166. Print.