When we write memoir we are engaged in retrospection - combining introspection with reflection. His second chapter takes up with his childhood. For instance, art critic Robert Hughes in Things I Didn’t Know begins his thematic account of his development as an art critic, with a serious car accident in Western Australia in 1999 that leaves him fighting for his life. Included in the memoir is an account of the depression the writer suffered as a result of being unloved and ill-treated and there is a section written with stunning clarity and compassion about a dark period in her adult life where she becomes unstuck emotionally.Ī memoir can begin anywhere and flash forward and backwards in time. For instance, Jeanette Winterson in Why be Happy When you Could be Normal examines the impact of being adopted by a harsh and unloving mother. Memoir is often arranged around a central theme with inter-connected strands that further inform the theme. It may be more emotional and concerned with capturing particular episodes that had a profound impact on the writer such as a tragedy and how the writer survived that event.
A memoir may cover a shorter time span, or an intense and pivotal period in the person’s life. The memoir allows for more flexibility and creativity of form. An autobiography aims to cover the entire sweep of a life and is written chronologically beginning with family stories, the birth of the narrator, childhood, adolescence, adult life and ending in the present moment. The boundaries between memoir and autobiography are often blurred and the terms are used interchangeably. A memoir is an autobiographical narrative composed from personal experience that tends to examine selected episodes from a life rather than a whole life.
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