Establishing narrative voice and encountering the ‘I’ through identity creation in life writing

Abstract

American biographer and scholar, Carl Rollyson, maintains that ‘the focus of biography is on the subject, not the biographer, yet half the story of a biography is, of course, who is telling the story’ [Rollyson, C. 2020. The Last Days of Sylvia Plath. New York: Blackstone, xi]. This article maintains that the writing process facilitates identity development by writing ourselves into existence. This experience is conveyed while focusing on issues of self-reflexivity and writer agency, alongside identity formation through writing our ‘own’ stories from unique perspectives. This process is explored through a discussion of the ways in which I have grappled with establishing a narrative voice while forging a personal sense of identity while writing my doctoral thesis, which is a practice-based project comprising a life-writing artefact presented alongside a critical exegesis. This article explores the ways in which writers occupy central roles within life writing, while underscoring the process in ascertaining issues pertaining to identity. Finally, this discussion concludes with the consideration of the ways in which the ‘I’ in life writing can be established, arguing for the personal experience that is inevitably embodied by the genre.