Oct 29, 2016 | 9:00 AM - 10:30 AM | LOFT 1

Dr. Leah McCormack, PhD

"Fraudulence" in Memoir and Fiction

The word “fraudulence” signifies deception and often carries with it a sense of the reprehensible nature of that which is deemed fraudulent. When used in reference to a text, the word generally implies a moral judgment of the author him- or herself. While all forms of life-writing make truth-claims to which the writer is held accountable—as if, by virtue of labeling the text nonfiction, he/she has signed a tacit pact with the reader—perhaps the most apparent (and notorious) transgressions of such a “pact” in recent years have occurred in the realm of autobiography. As Adam Phillips in his foreword to Barthes by Barthes notes, however, “the only identity is a fictive identity. … Autobiography, then, is an invention, a staging, a fiction” (v). Rarely, unfortunately, does the contemporary reader of memoir seem to acknowledge this fact of life-writing. Only when a work is labeled fiction, as in the cases of Gertrude Stein’s Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography, Julian Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot, or W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants, is a writer given virtually free rein to experiment with identity and life-writing conventions. The works I plan to discuss in this essay—Forrest Carter’s The Education of Little Tree, Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, Lauren Slater’s Lying, and Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Pale Fire—represent a wide spectrum of issues related to the notion of “fraudulence” in literature, which will allow me to explore the idea of taking risks in fiction and nonfiction more thoroughly.

Mrs. Sarah MacDonald, PhD Spring 2016

Healing Through Life Writing: Emma Smith’s A Cornish Waif

“Before writing this book, I always felt my young days were just bad and sordid all through; but as I write, much that was lovely has forced itself upon my memory” (72).

I am proposing an examination of Emma Smith’s A Cornish Waif (1954).  I argue that Smith fashioned her narrative within the literary structure popular during her childhood, namely a bildungsroman, in order to craft a tale of healing from the trauma of her youth. Through writing the autobiography, Smith accepted not just the trappings of middle-class norms but the emotional requirements as well. If Smith naturalized the superiority of the dominant ideology, then constructing her text into this genre would have highlighted her place in society. Smith examined the current ideology in connection with concrete circumstances in the treatment of the poor and illegitimate. This captured the nationalism of British society for her increased acceptance. When speaking of her daughters, Smith suggested that children who have more opportunities and stability are more developed. Again, it is this call to national pride that lauds Britain’s advancements and Smith’s connection to them. Smith made this clear through phrases such as “as I am writing I” and variations of this. Smith acknowledges the situation might not have been as clear as she thought as a child: “I think she was more to be pitied than blamed in that before a wedding ring was placed on her figure she found herself the mother of two children” (7); and “Poor Mother—it is only as I write that I realized what a time she must have had” (65). These statements work to absolve Maude of blame as Smith works through the trauma she went through. I argue that through writing, Smith accepted the past. Because she was no longer hungry and alone, the small positive experiences surfaced straightforwardly.

Biographies

Dr. Leah McCormack

Leah McCormack is Assistant Professor of English at Adams State University where she teaches creative writing and literature. She has her PhD in English from the University of Cincinnati and her MFA in creative writing from the City College of New York, City University of New York. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Hotel Amerika, Prairie Fire, Redivider, The Portland Review, Fiction, South Dakota Review, REAL: Regarding Arts & Letters, and North Dakota Quarterly. Her critical work has or will appear in Making Connections: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Cultural Diversity and The Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and Societies.

Sarah MacDonald

My work involves examining the life writing of working class Victorian women. I am especially interested in how the women used their life narratives for a variety of purposes. My publications cover Hannah Cullwick’s diaries and the teaching of life writing at the college level. I am currently finalizing the editing of my dissertation.

“Relationality in Working Women’s Autobiography.” Nineteenth Century Gender Studies 8.1: (Spring 2012) http://www.ncgsjournal.com/issue81/macdonald.htm.

“Communication difficulties with the 2012 Summer Olympics” Kaplan University General Education Microsite. July 2012.

“Blogging and Life Writing” assignment in Teaching College Literature. http://teachingcollegelit.com. November 2013.

“Working Women’s Life Writing” Guest Blogger, Interesting Literature http://interestingliterature.wordpress.com. November 2013.

“The Life Writing of Hannah Cullwick” The International Journal of Literary Humanities. 10.3 (2013): 25-39. Print.