Reading Kindred, I can’t help but be drawn to the idea that we discussed in class that Rufus allows Dana to become a writer by giving her the paper to write on and emphasizing her skills as a writer. In class, we discussed how this action comes cross as allowing Dana to truly consider herself a writer. I think this is an important idea that we have discovered: the idea of considering yourself a writer.
Does it take external influences to allow you to consider yourself a writer? I’d argue that the feeling comes within yourself and no one else; no amount of publication or praise can replace the feeling of whether or not you believe you are capable of writing and are successful in your writing. External factors, such as comments, praise, and publishing are very important in determining whether or not you have skills as a writer. However, I’d argue that personal feelings are much more important.
Moving to another topic, I’d argue that the novel is essentially a testament to finding the roots of your families history and exploring just how important these roots are. Ignoring time travel, we can observe the novel as describing the affects of Dana living and experiencing the cultural background that her relatives experienced. The horrors of slavery become much more real to her because she understands freedom; other slaves envy her because she experiences freedom, if only for a few days, in between trips back and forth from the past. Although other slaves often condemn her for having it easy, I’d still argue that the illusion of freedom prevents her from this feeling.
Thus, the breakdown from historical actress to a real-life person living and feeling everything as a slave in the early 1800’s. Although Dana talks about living as an actress earlier in the novel, her historical role is broken away, the safety net that she has shatters, and she begins to become separated from her place and time.
I agree with what you discuss in the first part of your post; that being a writer does not necessarily come from external forces, but from your own internal belief that you are a writer. This actually made me think back to the idea of actual truth and “feeling” truth. What is the “truth” of being a writer? Does it have an actual definition, or like mostly everything else we’ve done in this class, can it take on different definitions depending on the person? I think that it does have varying definitions depending on who’s defining it. Some may argue that to be a writer, you must have something published, or you must have some public acknowledgement of your skill level. Others may say that even if you only write as a leisurely activity, you are still considered a writer.
ReplyDeleteThe internal and external forces that influence the definition of “writer” are comparable to actual and emotional truths. External, tangible forces, such as having a book in print may carry more value for someone, like it did for the woman listening to the water buffalo story in The Things They Carried. Internal feelings; believing for whatever personal reason that you are a writer, carry more value for others, such as Tim O’Brien. We must recognize this then, and like so many other varying opinions, we have to learn to be open to other views, and situationally balance what is concrete, and what is emotional.
The part about what kind of forces that allows people to consider themselves to be writers to be very true. However, sometimes it can be false as well. There are a lot of people who write very poor stories and call themselves "writers." While to a certain extent, they are, what stops me from saying that they are is their refusal for criticism to help them improve. There is a broad area for where skills should not matter whehter or not a person considers themselves as a writer. However, there can sometimes be a small margain that makes the self proclaimed writers seem false.
ReplyDeleteDana's tranformation from "actor" to someone who is a part of the history is quite a moving point of the novel. The break down of the barrier between Dana from 1970s to Dana in the 1800s. There are things that she understands differently than those who condemn her, which does not erase the horrors that she has to face. Instead, they are more in-your-face because we latch onto Dana because it's her first person narrative and she thinks most like us.
While I do believe that being a writer is something that must come almost exclusively from within, I think it needs, at least most of the time, an external force to kind of push it toward really putting in the effort. I think that there are a lot of writers that don't have enough confidence in their writing to really make the leap needed to become a writer. Like Dana, a lot are probably discouraged by those around them from part taking in a career that may not have it's rewards. This is why I believe an external force is needed for the last step. The build up occurs because of internal reasoning, but external is needed for the push that causes writers to really devote their life to a unknown future.
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