hooks IWA

"Writing Autobiography"

Summary:

       In "Writing Autobiography," bell hooks grapples with the trying to write her autobiography in order to "kill" her former self. She wanted to get past the child she was and become a new person, leaving behind the memories of a terrible childhood. However, through her discovery that memories can not always be factual, and are forever tainted by the feelings of the person experiencing it, she comes to an understanding that her memories and account of events are different from her family members'. She also realizes that the memories will always be present and triggered at some of the most inopportune times, opposite of her original thought that she would lose the essence of the memory all together. bell hooks soon come to a level place in negotiation with herself that the childhood she was trying to kill needed to be rescued and by writing the memories it was healing her traumatic feelings and tension between who she used to be and the woman she is now.

Before You Read:

I actually am already writing my autobiography and it starts at the moment when I realized that my childhood was not at all normal and that there really is no "normal" at all. My mother was mentally ill and had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, so a lot of big events in my childhood correspond to mental breakdowns of her own. While PTSD patients live life in a series of memories, flashbacks, and determining what is real and what is not, I tell my stories corresponding with these milestone memories. It is choppy, jumpy, and mimics the disease she suffered. 

As you Read:

I can most definitely understand wanting to kill off one's childhood. However, I am who I am because of that childhood. 

QJD:

1.      

      What does hooks mean when she writes that she wanted to “kill” her self through her writing? 

I think hook's means that she wanted to kill herself through her writing  because often once you write out a memory, you feel that you do not have to return to it. Once it's explored and out, you feel that you can move on and rewrite who you are by coming to terms with the memory and becoming someone new.

AEI:

1.      Have you ever had to change your identity for something that you needed to write? How does this relate to McCloud’s mask? 

I  

      I have changed my identity to write something. In fact, the first writing contest I ever won was under a fictitious name because I feared if anyone knew who I was, they would put me and my brother and sister in foster care because of what was happening. So I wrote the piece in high school, won the prize, and then never claimed it.