I turned to the "art" of journaling and from there to "creative" writing many years ago in order to save my sanity as a young mother with four small children and a nasty case of cabin fever. I learned quickly that what I wrote mirrored the unspoken, nearly unthought, emotions and contexts in my head. Even then I knew I couldn't separate internal and external experience in any significant way.
We see only with our own eyes and are seldom our own best judge or most honest critic. It requires no particular stretch then to find agreement with Marxist theorists who believe "the author is unaware of precisely what he or she is saying or revealing in [his or her] text" (Barry 161).
However, Hegel points out in The Phenomenology of Spirit "work forms and shapes" the worker (The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism 635), and any English major knows - writing is work. The author (artist) creates initially from a place of social and cultural context, but the process of writing shapes her in unexpected ways, and she is no longer just the product of society but sees from a new place, perhaps a collaborative or a dialectic between social and work experience...
Through this process of change, the author (artist) gains authority as an agent in the "struggle for power" (Barry 151) against the current dominant class, the struggle which defines the Marxist ideal of progress and without which progress would be impossible.
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Or...does the author, despite her growth and experience, still implicitly support the status quo? The illusion of enlightenment my betray aims the author is not aware of. Often we see examples of this illusory authority gained through work or experience with politically correct comments, often from those who earnestly declare that "all the [insert ethnic group name here] I've ever met were the most wonderful people on earth" without any recognition that such comments, though positive, also express stereotypes that are easily dismantled.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious how much work is required to give an author authority to act as an agent for change, especially considering that even among writers who recognize writing as work, many would argue that the act of writing brings them in closer contact with humanity, rather than leaving them bereft of humanity like the labor force 'performing fragmented, repetitive tasks" (Barry 151).
I took a Creative Nonfiction class about a year ago, and it was very enlightening. I was always surprised at the things that would come through in my writing that were noticeable to others and not myself. Furthermore, other students in the class were also enlightened as to their own personal ideologies, which came through in their writing. Sometimes the ideologies were not complimentary, but we learned from them as writers.
ReplyDeleteCan a conscious writer shape their reality as a writer? Or is the pen in hand only a detached tool of unseen forces? Can a conscious pen exercise a will of its own?
ReplyDeleteI'm with Rhonda. In the end, even with all the influences that we can never entirely escape, we are the determining factor in shaping ourselves. Yes, a conscious writer can shape their reality as a writer.
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