The Body in Autobiography and Autobiographical Novels

Download or read book The Body in Autobiography and Autobiographical Novels written by Menotti Lerro and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2018-10-12 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores a web of complex relationships between body and mind, discussing the efforts of individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds to define, to achieve, or to reject the “normal”; and, in some cases, to put something else in its place. After considering the problems arising from other people’s perceptions of non-standard bodies, the book turns to gender: is it written “upon the body”, established at birth, determined only by physical traits and distinguished by material things such as clothes; or is it written “within the body”, defined through the subject’s own feelings? It considers what happens when “males” consider themselves “female”, and “females” consider themselves “male”. It concludes with the analysis of four books, by different authors with different sexual orientations. Two of these volumes might be considered “genuine autobiographies”, while the other two are novels which include numerous autobiographical features that reflect the authors’ own thoughts.