Essay draft
Miyoyo
Alm-Shinebourne_Red_Bean_Cakes.pptx“Red Bean Cakes: New York and London”
Janice Shinebourne
Think of a defining moment in your life. This could be something exciting that happened to you or something that shook your world in a negative way. Have you ever been reminded of this event by something much later on in life? What reminded you of this event? If you haven’t been reminded of this event, why do you think that is?
-Does anyone have a defining moment in his or her life that they’d like to share?
- These moments is one of the key defining characteristics of memoir
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Memoir – defining the Genre
Memoir vs. fiction?
Relationship to ‘fact’/world outside of the text?
“A story ends where it ends” H. Porter Abbotts
Identity of the narrator?
This is the first work of memoir that we’ve looked at in this class. White Tiger was obviously a novel. “The Collector of Treasures,” and “Simple Recipes” are short stories that, though told from different points of view, make no claims to speak for the authors or to represent their lives. The only piece of writing that we read that could begin to approach a type of memoir genre was Fred Wah’s “Breathin’ My Name with a Sigh,” but that is a poem and, so, does not seek to reach for the kind of scope that memoir or autobiography usually hopes for.
Because this is our first memoir, it’s important to identify what distinguishes it from some other genres.
First of all, what is the difference between a work of memoir and a work of fiction?
memoir: assumption that it contains some fact. Traditionally regarded as NONFICTION. People and places in the memoir are assumed to have a clear relationship to the world outside of the text; i.e. a memoir does not create its own world, but refers to an existing one
Fiction may have elements of fact in it and may borrow from non-fiction, but the story is an invention of its author. Ambiguous relationship to the world outside of the text; in Fiction, “a story ends where it ends.” WE don’t ask, “What happens to such-and-such a character after the end of the story. We might imagine what happens to them, but we would hopefully know that our workings-out of their story are purely our imagination. There is no more story. This is not the case with memoir or autobiography. Since a memoir/autobiography must by necessity be written by someone still alive, we can look for what has happened to them after their ‘story’ has ended.
Memoir: narrator is assumed to be identical with its SUBJECT and identical with its AUTHOR
Fiction: narrator is assumed to be an invention of its author, even if it shares similar characteristics to the author
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Memoir vs. Autobiography
Point of view?
Relationship to external reality/truth?
Organizational strategy(ies)?
Narrative style?
So having made these important distinctions between memoir and fiction, we need to get into the differences between memoir and autobiography. Sometimes these words are used interchangeably, but for the past century or so, memoir has been defined as a sub-genre of autobiography.
Point of view: Both are first person perspective
Both make claims to truth and are based on truth.
Generally speaking, the scope of autobiography is the author’s entire life, whereas a memoir might focus on one key aspect, theme, even or choice in a life.
An autobiography usually begins at the beginning and progresses chronologically to the end. Time, in that sense, and the passage of time, is how the autobiography is organized. Vs. a memoir which, as we talked about at the start of class, may start anywhere in the author’s life and move back and forward according to how key or defining moments in the author’s life affect their experiences.
Related to this organizing principle, an autobiography may sometimes feel more like a historical document – may include very specific dates/information, but this isn’t always true. A memoir, generally speaking, may feel more personal and may involve less intense fact-checking. The organization around key events in memoir eliminates the need to include other details.
The narrative style of autobiography is frequently described as “telling” while the narrative style of memoir is sometimes described as “showing.”
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Possible Definitions for Memoir
“A memoir is how one remembers one’s own life, while an autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts double-checked” (Vidal 5)
“Unlike autobiography, which moves in a dutiful line from birth to fame, memoir narrows the lens, focusing on a time in the writer’s life that was unusually vivid, such as childhood or adolescence, or that was framed by war or travel or public service or some other special circumstance.” (Zinsser 15)
All that being said, the divisions between autobiography and memoir are somewhat fuzzy and you shouldn’t be surprised if an author writing about his or her life frequently veers back and forward between the two. The main thing about both is that they’re first person life narratives that make some kind of claim to truth or a relationship between the world in the text and the world outside the text.
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Janice (Jan) Lowe Shinebourne
Born in Canje, Guyana, 1947
Guyana: racially and ethnically heterogeneous population. Indo-Guyanese are largest ethnic group, descendants of indentured labourers from India; Afro-Guyanese, descenants of slaves brought from Africa by Dutch and British colonists. Others are Indigenous Amerindians, Chinese, and Caucasian descendants of British colonials.
Educated at University of Guyana
Worked as a reporter in Georgetown, Guyana
Began writing in mid-1960s
Period of heightened political and racial tensions (Guyana gained independence May 1966)
1970 emigrated to London, England
Post-graduate literary studies at the University of London
1974 won Nation History and Arts Council Literary Competition
First novel, Timepiece, published in 1986
1987 won Guyana Prize for Literature: Best First Book of Fiction (first woman to win this prize)
Worked as an editor, political and cultural activist, college and university lecturer.
“Red Bean Cakes: New York and London”
Originally published in The Godmother and Other Stories in 2004.
Point of View
Structure
Timeframe
| The Canton, SOHO | Omi’s, SOUTHALL | Café Jam, BRIXTON | CHINATOWN, NY | |
| What cultural elements (food, people, customs, concerns etc.) does the author use to characterize this place? Any unusual vocabulary? | ||||
| What are the significant/ central images of this section? Which emotions dominate? | ||||
| What is the author’s tone toward her subject in this section? How does she set the tone? | ||||
| Describe the significant moment /person from the author’s life that is evoked for her by this place. What features of the present place evoke the past for her? | ||||
| What theme/ truth she is trying to convey in this section? How is food related? |
Consider: how do the restaurants function as a picture of local culture?
Consider: how does each place help the author situate a different part of her heritage?
Define: Creole, Punjabi, Hindi
Locate: “Old British Guiana,” Kashmir, Delihi, Soho, Southall, West London, Brixton, Chinatown NY
Re: the significant moment: consider how does the past shape the narrator’s identity and the manner in which she relates to the present place? How does the present affect how she relates to the past?
Re: Theme: another way of getting at this is to ask what lessons does Shinebourne draw from her Grandmother? Father? Mother? The young woman from the Dominican Republic in the final section?
Re: food: how does Shinebourne’s perspective on food and culture differ from Wah’s in “Breathin’ My Name with a Sigh” and / or Thien’s in “Simple Recipes”?
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Drawing it all together . . .
Why do you think Shinebourne choose the memories that she chooses in this memoir?
How does Shinebourne’s own hybrid culture and identity influence her experiences in a wide variety of places?
Is there a unifying point to the different memories Shinebourne relates in this memoir?
How do people define personal identity in a turbulent world?
Is it possible to have a stable identity?
Works Cited
Vidal, Gore. Palimpsest: a Memoir. New York: Penguin, 1996. Print.
Zinsser, William. Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir. New York: Mariner Books, 1988. Print.
