Biographies; past and present

Biographies are the telling of a person’s whole story, and memoirs are the little stories within that make up a life. A cumulative example of a memoir is The Glass Castle: A memoir by Jeannette Walls. The memoir is about Walls’ childhood and into adulthood, focusing on her parents and siblings and the unique way in which they live. Walls ‘ style of delivery is that of herself experiencing the unusual events of her childhood. She describes them as though still a child, she does not add what her adult self thinks or feels, so the reader is always able to create their own feelings on the events as if watching them happen.

Readers can hardly put the book down, because they want to read what they family will do next, what will happen to Jeanette and what her reaction will be. It is gripping and interesting, while also being a true story. A different approach to keeping the reader interested can be seen in Eudora Welty’s "One Writers Beginning's". Welty’s style follows a more ‘structured’ approach by telling you a sequence of events. She keeps the reader interested in her feelings as she is experiencing the situation. That is what you’re interest falls to; the opinions and feelings not the actual events.

Frederick Douglass in his first chapter of his autobiography, reveals much about himself. He reveals how little he actually knows about himself. Knowledge that we, today, would find almost instinctual; who are parents are, and how old we are. In today's world, a birthday is a right and something we all have; our day. But Frederick Douglass did not know his own. Frederick Douglass knows more about Frederick Douglass than any other writer, but his style is that of ignorance- he simply presents that he is not sure of exact dates or people (his birthday or father). Similar to Jeannette Walls, he presents it all as factual information, not his own feelings on the truly terrible childhood he experience. When he does offer up an opinion, it is stated as a guess of sorts. For example he talks about why he was taken away from his mother at a young age, “Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child's affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the inevitable result.” Douglass can not say why they do this, but he recognizes the result.

Frederick Douglass takes a different approach to telling his story than do many other modern autobiographers. Most self written stories function as memoirs, talking about what is relevant or interesting, and jumping from story to story. These memoirs often stand to give the reader not only the events, but how the writer reacted and felt. What they took from the experience and how it lead to other events in their life. This is a contrast to the factual delivery of Frederick Douglass.

Douglass, Frederick. NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS AN AMERICAN SLAVE. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. Boston. 1845 Project Gutenberg, Web. 12 Oct. 2016