Autobiography - Synthèse

To begin with I'd like to give a definition of Autobiography and why we write them. An autobiography is a narrative of a person's life written by himself or herself. It can be in a diary or a journal, a letter, a novel (which would be a pure narrative), a confession or a memoir. We usually write it because most of the time we want to be famous, to be remembered and of course for money, so as to be immortal in history. But also to make people understand our choices, to justify ourselves or to give a positive image. Mostly, autobiographies are written in first-person point of view. This means that the narrator, or person telling the story, is also in the story. However can we say that autobiographies are really true?

In order to answer my problematic I chose two documents studied in class which are “The Other Side of the Story” from the novel My Place written by Sally Jane Morgan and published in 1987. An article from the Inquirer Staff Writer Fawn Vrazo published on the website philly.com November the 4th, 1997. And as my personal document I decided to choose the movie The Social Network directed by David Fincher and released on October 1, 2010.

In a first part we'll see the elements that the authors are using to make us react, then in a second part the elements that proves if the autobiographies are real or not.

I- Our reaction?

a- “The Other Side of the Story”: Sally Jane Morgan uses the truth about the taking away of the Aboriginal children by the Whites. Stolen Generation. Quest of identity

Arthur=don't give his name, Daisy=brainwashed.

b- “Inquired Staff Writer”: criticism of an autobiography.

c-”The Social Network”:

II- Real or not?

a- “The Social Network”: shows the real side of Mark Zuckerberg, what he did to be famous.

b- “Inquired Staff Writer”: not true because too harsh to be real, wrote things that never happened, selected events, ignored some elements and transformed others.

c- “The Other Side of the Story”: Stolen Generation. 3 months to tell the story=adding details. Some things cannot appear in the story= he's going to lie/to hide some parts. Tell history of Aboriginal people→ history= true/fact whereas in the title she says “Story” which is related to fiction.

To conclude, we could never say if an autobiography is really true or not. Some writers will add some information, others will hide, because an autobiographical novel is partially fiction. Names and locations are often changed and events are recreated to make them more dramatic though the story goes in the same way of the author's life. There are elements added to make the story more dramatic and to be more appreciated from the public.

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