Autobiographical Writing

All the writing we'll do this term will have some aspect of the autobiographical about it, but particularly the work we're doing at the beginning of the term. These first two readings of personal memoir are connected to the kind of work that you'll be doing on your own over the next couple weeks. They're both about family and relationships.

"A Matter of Life and Death": What do you think about Aubry's statement, "Marriage gives you someone to blame" (3)? How does this fit in w/ your own ideas of love and marriage? What do you think about his conclusion in which he states that his wife intrudes into his nightmares? Is this a good or a bad thing and how come?

"Thanksgiving in Mongolia" is a kind of literacy narrative. Levy writes about what writing and reading meant to her--having adventures. How does this fit, or not, w/ your idea of literacy? How do you connect these earlier dreams to what happened to her on the bathroom floor of that hotel in Mongolia? What do you think about Levy's use of words like "witch" (107) and "black magic" (108) in relation to herself?