In “Traumatized Time,” David McGlynn delves into some of the
struggles writers encounter when writing creative nonfiction. Writing in present
tense, he says, is one avenue writers can explore because it “allows for the
author to inhabit the point of view of her younger self” (114-115). It also “exudes
a timelessness” that allows for an embodiment of the traumatic experience. However,
present tense is showy—it “calls even greater attention to itself as an artificial
construction” (115).
McGlynn seems to point to the manipulation of time and space
as a reason for the question of truth that surrounds personal narrative. He
then brings up another major contention regarding memoir: confession. His brief
discussion of confession is notable, I think, because it is an important element
of personal writing. “Confessional” is a particular label that is applied to
writing, a label that often brings with it a sense of disgust or disgrace. Yet McGlynn
disagrees with one memoirist’s lack of confession, or, at least, lack of
confession in the way he expects, which is not
composite and generic.
Finally, McGlynn points to “experimenting with the puzzle
pieces of storytelling” as a way to work through “the reservations and hang-ups
that roadblock the telling of…stories” (119). This final idea ties in nicely to
Sundberg’s essay, “It Will Look Like a Sunset.” Sundberg uses fragments and a
braided narrative to disclose the abuse she experienced at the hands of her
husband. The outcome is an essay that seems, to me at least, very much like a
collection of puzzle pieces that work together to not only explore the
relationship, but also to ask questions about the narrator’s role in the
relationship.
There are a few questions I have regarding these readings. As
usual, feel free to address any or none of them.
1. McGlynn’s piece discusses memoir specifically. I’m interested in the way the name of the genre
automatically affects our perception of writing. I read a bit about the
difference between “memoir” and “personal essay”. Here,
Lopate says that memoir requires people. Purdue OWL says,
“While the personal essay can be about almost anything, the memoir tends to
discuss past events.” Regardless of the technical difference, the names
themselves seem to evoke different senses of value and respect, especially when
confession gets thrown into the conversation.
What are your feelings and ideas about confession in
personal writing? How do you feel about the naming of the genres, especially “essay”
or “creative nonfiction” versus “memoir”?
2. Do you think the structure of “It Will Look Like a Sunset”
works well for this narrative? How might it have been different if it had used
a linear, chronological structure?
3. McGlynn says, “One of the magical qualities of creative
nonfiction…is its ability to travel through time, to leap without preamble or
warning from the narration of particular past events to the immediate and
universal present” (113). In addition, “[B]y inhabiting the lives of other
people, memoir readers are able to discover new ways of understanding their own
worlds, their own lives” (113).
Does Sundberg’s essay leap to the immediate and universal
present? Does it allow readers, even if they haven’t experienced the same trauma,
a new way of understanding, a “new vocabulary” (McGlynn 113)?
“It Will Look Like a Sunset” is the first essay for this class that I’ve read already. It had a major emotional impact on me when I read it over a year ago, and now I’m excited to really analyze it instead of just feel it. I’m mostly looking at question 2 and how it connects to confession and trauma. I decided to attempt to dissect the timeline of the essay:
ReplyDeletePregnancy at age 26; eight years later; the beginning of the relationship; the marriage; sometime after the marriage when the policemen arrive; before the son turned two; back to the scene with the policemen; two years into the relationship; various points in the marriage; back to the scene with the police and the arrest; two years after the move when the son was almost two; immediately after the arrest; later after the arrest; “shortly before I left him”; undeterminable; further after the arrest; when the son is six; the one time he hit her in the face; a month before the arrest; undeterminable again; same night that he pulled out her hair; undeterminable; two days after the arrest; during the marriage; day after she left him; reflecting from the present; Thanksgiving Day as she left him; reflecting from the present/day at the cave; six months after she left him; present reflection; present reflection in Idaho looking back over time.
After breaking down the structure, there are a few things that strike me. First, the short sections that aren’t placeable in the timeline are painful dialogue from the ex-husband. They don’t need to be placed in time, because they’re representative of the relationship overall. Second, much more of the essay hinges on the arrest scene than I noticed during my first reading. I think allowing the action of the essay to move in and out around that traumatic event provides more room for reflection and more space to breathe. And third, I notice that there’s a varying degree of specificity in terms of time. Time is marked by the pregnancy, the move, the age of the son, the arrest, and leaving him. This strategy gives readers just enough details to have some stability as the braided structure jumps around in time without feeling superfluous. Also, I think a braided structure makes it about the writer’s experience, not about the trauma itself. Sundberg is able to put different parts of her experience in conversation with each other, and this feels like it’s paying respect to her, rather than building up the actions of the abuser again.
I don’t think these effects would have been achieved if the essay was chronological. I also believe that it would be more traumatic to write, perhaps even to read. I can’t speak for Sunberg, but like her, I’ve experienced intimate partner abuse as well as sexual violence. I know that in my experience, it’s incredibly difficult to write about--you want to represent it to potential readers, but getting sucked back into the exact experience is so painful. I think writing strictly chronologically has always had the potential to make me relive things more. That’s not only difficult to do, but it produces writing that is just a retelling. The potential catharsis of writing about trauma and the intentions of the survivor/writer are certainly more important than the aesthetics of the essay or the way it lives up to essayistic standards. At the same time, for me, I feel that the extremity of those traumatic experiences deserves particular care in how they’re represented; if I’m going to share them with an audience, I’d like for them to be the least re-traumatizing as possible.
I’m also really interested in Emery’s point about how confessional writing is stigmatized. I’m very wary of saying that the only confessional writing or writing about trauma worth doing has to meet a certain set of standards. If it comes up, this is something I’d love to talk about more next week...I think it’s inhibiting my own writing in some ways.
First, Madison, your breakdown of events and time is amazing and helped me think about the piece, pacing, time, and important events much more. I agree with you that it seems the arrest is the pivotal moment that holds the piece together and that the episodic nature with a few time determiners coupled with indeterminate, constant ex-husband dialogue is likely the best way to write for the author… but also works beautifully for readers. It was never too hard to figure out when something was happening but ultimately it didn’t matter when because it was happening. This piece was, to me, extremely well written and structured—I cannot imagine strictly chronological would be nearly as effective, nor would focusing on any other aspects as much as the arrest, given its importance to both the then and now narrator.
ReplyDeleteNaming aspects of this creative nonfiction world is a concept I have been encountering more and more as this semester goes on. The naming of various genres and subgenres seems helpful for me as a novice to understand general guiding principles, but I also worry that too much time or thought goes into identifying what exactly something is or should be that the beauty I find in reading and writing creative nonfiction gets muddled. These could just be the concerns of a novice, but do think that some differentiating is both important and complex/complicated. One aspect of this naming is the way that the different genres fit into one another. There is nonfiction and within nonfiction is creative nonfiction… in creative nonfiction there are personal essays (with lyric essays as a subgenre, to name just one from another class) and memoirs and immersion writing/journalism/memoir within some other breakdown, to name only the few that I am familiar with. Where and how these interact, overlap, and deviate is interesting to me but also difficult with only a small snapshot of the giant field of creative nonfiction. I look forward to learning from everyone else what they think of this naming and the distinctions between various genres we have already encountered thus far.
I've never really thought much about the difference between memoir and personal essay except for the obvious: one is a much longer treatment. But this has implications. For one thing, memoir's extended narrative is more dependent on structure, not just as a means of organizing the information (always a challenge in book-length nonfiction) but to dramatize the narrator's experience. This means there will often be the kind of plot devices we associate with the novel--story arcs with climaxes and complications etc.--as well as multiple characters. Unlike autobiography, the memoir focuses on part, rather than all, of the narrator's life, but in either case it seems like memoir must provide portrait of the narrator that feels whole rather than fragmentary. Unlike the essay, the memoir's extended narrative wouldn't seem to accommodate gaps, contradictions, and sudden, repeated time shifts like we see in Sundberg's piece. The "I-character" in a memoir has the time to develop and change. In the essay, we often get a quicker look at a mere slice of the narrator's self. As Scott Sanders wrote, in the essay "the first person singular is too narrow a gate for the whole writer to pass through."
ReplyDeleteWhat might this mean for a writer like Sundberg who chose initially to write an essay rather than a memoir about her domestic violence trauma? (By the way, the memoir is coming). It certainly means that she doesn't have to spend as much time with it, which may be a relief. But it also means that the trauma, yanked out of the larger life narrative that memoir presents, isn't studied as part of that larger story. The before and the after is truncated or missing. Any therapist will tell you that larger story is worth studying if you really want to know why you made the choices you made that may have led to the trauma, and the wounds that linger after. But the essay invites a writer to look closely at what happened, and how it felt, and this is where it begins.
Snarky moment: Though I thought McGlynn's "Traumatized Time" was a logical pairing with the Sundberg essay, on re-reading I didn't think it was very well written. The first two paragraphs could have been cut entirely (who cares, really, how many subway sandwiches he ate at the bookfair?) and then there are lines like this: "Rarely, though sometimes, my students fret..." Which is it? Rarely or sometimes? I did appreciate, however, his inclusion of research from psychologists who write about trauma. I think there's much more to be written about confessional writing that draws on that research.
I am intrigued by the structure of "It Will Look Like a Sunset." The break from linear time seems to allow Sundberg to accurately account for the back and forth feelings that justify her prolonged stay in an abusive relationship. If she had been wedded to chronology, those precise moments that defend her continued presence with Caleb might not fit so neatly into my sympathies as a reader. I am reminded of Joan Didion defending 'how it felt to me,' in "On Keeping a Notebook." Surely, the moments of Caleb's tenderness and kindness play over and over again in Sundberg's mind in direct opposition to the brutality. I appreciate the complexity of her account and feel my humanity stretched accordingly.
ReplyDeleteAs for the idea of confession, I can't help but feel that the word implies judgement. Isn't the only distinction between truth and confession the attachment of guilt or shame to the latter? Can we just call it truth and save ourselves the trouble?
Reading McGlynn and Sundberg’s essay, really disrupted the value I place on using present tense. I’m struck by the truth of McGlynn’s argument that “human consciousness itself unfolds in the past tense” and that “no story-is ever written in real time, as the action actually happens” (115). That said, Sundberg's use of past tense to describe the scenes of her ex-husband’s abuse, make the few sections that do use present tense so much more affecting. Madison, I love your point about Sundberg's experiences in each section operating in conversation with each other. I saw this happening as well,and saw shifts in the narrator’s relationship to her memory of Caleb. At times the narrator appears to sympathize with Caleb and minimize the severity of his abuse, and at other times the narrator draws attention to Caleb’s selfishness, the emptiness of his promises to change, and the nature of his abuse, “I couldn’t have been human to him in those moments” (214). What I find so compelling about these shifts, is that they’re not neatly signaled by past or present tense. The narrator, even in present tense, admits to occasional shifts in her disposition towards Caleb, “there are days when I still wish that he would beg me to take him back, promise to change, actually change” (215). That said, the narrator follows this line with, “this will never happen” (215). The use of past tense in the other sections, then, gives me the impression that the "now" narrator is still negotiating with these experiences. Which makes me wonder is there a "then" narrator that's distinct from the "now" narrator? I might be overthinking this, but the line between these seemed blurred to me.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jackie. I think Sundberg’s structure was very effective. I have read chronological narratives of domestic violence before, and (I don’t want to sound insensitive because I definitely empathize with those who struggle to leave abusive relationships; it was just very frustrating to watch my mom stay with abusive men for so many years) I have never before felt like I could really understand why someone would stay in that relationship. This structure forced me to focus on the good moments and the normal moments just as much as the moments of abuse, and I felt like I could finally understand how all of those moments could be tangled together for someone and make it difficult to leave. I can also see how it would be easier to work through feelings on this experience with this structure.
ReplyDeleteSomething that was interesting to me, though, was how rarely Sundberg discussed her son as part of this picture. I appreciated this structure as a puzzle being put together, but it seemed like there was a piece missing at times. I’m not sure that this is a flaw in the narrative, though. The impression I got was that he existed (to her knowledge, at least) apart from those experiences except in the good moments and in her reasons for staying. It would be interesting to see how he fits into the upcoming memoir Bruce mentioned.
I think that "Traumatized Time" really pointed out a sort of disconnect that I've felt from this focus on writing towards a particular kind of potent writing. McGlynn says that "as a reader, as a lover of stories" he is "bored by (Harrison's) 'composite, generic memories'" preferring a different way of portraying memories and trauma, such as whatever cliched fog-of-war bs story he chose as his ideal. While Sundberg's essay, and Madison's response to it, show that there are maybe more compelling and potent ways of writing traumatic memories, McGlynn's feeling of relative excitement for something that strikes me as a cliche, and his feeling of boredom for something that doesn't follow his desired conventions, but maybe explores something less tedious about the way that memory interacts with trauma... it all seems counterproductive to good writing (or at least what I want writing to be).
ReplyDeleteI'm a reader, like McGlynn, but I don't care that much about stories, I'm far more interested in ideas. Am I continually barking up the wrong tree? Should CNF be the realm of technicians who are skilled in reproducing the tried and true and acceptably potent for whatever genre?
I'm starting to bore myself with having this same sort of response again and again. I want to find ways of being a more potent writer and getting my audience to be willing to listen to what I'd like to communicate with them, but I don't think that what qualifies as potent for McGlynn qualifies as potent for me. I think we get a sense of this in workshop too, when so often some people will say they love some aspect of your writing that makes it work, and other people say that the same thing is holding it back. Maybe, especially when dealing with trauma, the conventional desires of the audience really should take a back seat to the desires of the author? When I read something like Sundberg's essay, I'm not hoping for something juicy or wild, full of vivid moments that I can get into, I'm hoping that it reveals that the act of writing her trauma was personally rewarding for her in some way.
In reference to the question, "Does Sundberg’s essay leap to the immediate and universal present? Does it allow readers, even if they haven’t experienced the same trauma, a new way of understanding, a 'new vocabulary'" I was actually struck by how Sunberg's choice of phrasing in each fragment depicted the passivity of her past self. Which, I think, is demonstrative of many people who have experienced abuse. For example, consider the Introduction: I was twenty-six...spent most of my twenties delaying adulthood. He was twenty-four...enjoyed a reputation as a partier. The pregnancy was a surprise...we married four months later. The next paragraph Sundberg passively depicts the context of her memory in mostly passive references, leaving the only active voice use to refer to her non-movement--as my belly stretched...my limbs grew heavy...I napped constantly...the summer heat gave me nightmares...I dreamt...I woke with my heart racing...
ReplyDeleteEven as I read the piece again, I hear a helplessness--or perhaps an apathy that seems to have taken over Sunberg's past self. It's viscerally sad, yet beautiful...a hummingbird flew...it was panicked...I wrapped my hand around it...the hummingbird heart pulsing against my palms, then released it on the stoop. The contrast of the hummingbird--a bird who's ridiculously active--to her past state haunts me as a reader. So, I guess that McGlynn makes sense???
McGlynn's ideas about leaping through time, that sometimes past tense holds more possibilities for thought and exploration was something worthwhile to me. Both the pieces I've handed in thus far have been present tense--and in writing int hat tense the limitations become immediately obvious.
ReplyDeleteThe Sundberg essay had an interesting, fractured timeline structure that I thought worked well and allowed her top move through time and mix up time and show us the important events in a way that built to a greater whole.
I think Madison's analysis of the structure of Sundberg's essay is spot on. The non-linear, brief exploration of her abusive relationship puts us right in her head and allows the audience to follow her entire experience. I think it would have been a lot harder for us to sympathize with the author if it had been chronologically ordered. We would have seen all of these episodes of violence play out and wondered why she continued to stay. By juxtaposing the violence (and in particular the arrest) with scenes of traditional romance, we're brought right into the mind of the victim. Sundberg has really illustrated the love, misplaced hope, loneliness, and fear that keeps victims in a situation like hers. This juxtaposition is most potent for me on page 214, when she sees "the fear" in her friend's eyes, then tells us how gentle Caleb was. We’re thrown right into her experience this way and have no choice but to see not only the stark abuse but also the love and commitment that kept her there.
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