This discussion focuses on the two most important autobiographic texts of Mitchison, who was a creative novelist of brilliant adaptability. She was a renowned professional author of various autobiographical narratives. During her late seventies, she wrote and published three books of autobiography which included “All Change Here: Girlhood and Marriage (1975), Small Talk: Memoirs of an Edwardian Childhood (1973), and You May Well Ask: A Memoir 1920-1940”. All these scripts covered only a part of her early years. Naomi relied heavily on memories rather than manuscripts or documents and previous records. This does not mean that she did not use written materials. Nevertheless, Naomi’s memoir could easily be established through memories. Moreover, the manuscripts and written documents only complimented her techniques and narrations of her life. The discus tends to explain that Naomi’s inscription is more general than just what is known and is not readily available in what many people could perceive to be the source of autobiographical manuscripts. Indeed, Naomi’s memoirs were partially borrowed from a sorted array of unpublished material, which includes personal e-mail, journals, travel inscription, and text novels, rather depended largely on memories of experiential points in life. The focus is to show how Naomi sorts through experience in her two most important memoirs “All Change Here” and “You May Well Ask”. In essence, the discussion shows how Naomi used the technique of sorting through experience in her two memoirs.
Sorting Through Experience
Naomi’s technique of sorting through experience could be seen in her early memoirs. The two volumes are among her autobiographical volumes published at the time and traced her life pattern from childhood to her successful career as a writer. Naomi’s journey of life as portrayed in these two memoirs did not follow a particular life pattern rather consisted of eventful memories of her life. The memories represent a critical experience in life that Naomi felt important and should be known. in other words, Naomi constantly sorted out critical experiences in her life, which she could vividly remember. The memories that trace Naomi’s life pattern could easily be found throughout the two memoirs. Her childhood from the strict Edwardian convention to the fabulous wedding during the First World War to having a large family could be traced. The two volumes catch the reader’s attention, not because of explicable experiences but because such memories cover only a quarter of Naomi’s life. Volume 2 “You may Well Ask” ends brusquely just before World War 2.
Examining how Naomi sorted through experience in the third memoir “You may Well Ask” and the first volume “All Change Here”, Naomi used memories to present a new genre in autobiography. Naomi used the two volumes to present this new genre in the post-wartime. The interest in the two memoirs highpoints the significance of the use of the technique of sorting through experience. Besides, the use of the technique indicates an exceptional way of presenting the new genre in autobiographies. Through the series, Mitchison demonstrates knowledge of the problem of reflective elucidation of life as well as the associated critical illusory components. In her previous volumes, Naomi indicated the diverse sources she used to construct the text acknowledging the weakness of remembering exactly the events. Even though the technique of sorting through experience was largely used in these memoirs, she acknowledges the defective and idiosyncratic aspects of recollection. Writing the memoirs during that difficult time using the memories of events as they occurred, Naomi referred to her childhood logs and mails to remind her of the events. Nevertheless, she knew how subjective and selective the use of these materials has on the overall presentation of the genre. The realization of the weakness of the use of the material made her conclude to add the commentaries from the diaries separately from the text. Most importantly, she used memories and imagination to present specific and special events in her childhood.
In the second memoir, “All Change Here”, Mitchison used the technique of sorting through experiences to elucidate her teenage years, becoming aware of dogmatic cognizance, and her grant marriage ceremony to her husband during the war. In this memoir, Mitchison primarily relied upon memories or recollecting of the credentials of past occurrences. However, Naomi was concerned about her total reliance on selected memories of past events. In the first part of the memoir, Naomi tells the truth concerning the use of memories of important experiences in putting down the autobiography. She made the readers aware of the less factuality of the information being presented. She argued that the memories are subjective and self-centered. She continued to highlight the expressions of recollections over the period. In this memoir, Mitchison depends primarily on memories compared with the previous volumes as she alluded below.
“In case I want to be truthful concerning my ‘memories’ book, I only need to write what I truly recall … Nevertheless, it is important to highlight how we can recall our past. Besides the recollection, how then can we prove what we write?”
This tells how Mitchison relied heavily on important memories to write “All Change Here”. Mitchison relied less on documentation including diaries, letters, photographs, and any other form of documentation to come up with this memoir, unlike the previous volume. She entirely used memories to portray the feeling of the events. However, acknowledging the fact that she is only sorting important events in life, she mentions that she cannot remember the minutiae of day-to-day existence.
“I can only recall exactly and in any aspect in my life when there has been this stiffness of pleasure of fear or discomfort of schedules when I have been openly I personally”
Sorting through experience or rather recollecting the most important events in her life not only brings out a new genre in autobiography but also deals with subjectivity related to the autobiographic genres. Mitchison used the technique to bring out a positive light on her life experiences. She used the technique to make her work a more dynamic and dependable depiction of disposition. The move from the traditional rigidity of the genre to more dynamic aspects can be seen from the way the text is structured. Naomi’s memoirs have diverged from the idea of static sequential account of characters, occurrence, and imitations to produce a genre. While the first period of Naomi’s life is covered in the two genres, the episodes are organized according to subject and character. This underscores the use of sorting through experience. It is also a departure from the old style of stringent collation of events and times. The use of the style has liberated the approach to the memoirs, shifted the presentation of the genre from the traditionally recognized ideals, and reasonably come up with genuine depiction compared with common life according to chronological order.
Even though Naomi avoided the use of the chronological tactic to display herself, a critical view of the two memoirs, indicate a common pattern program from the shut conventional and secluded world of the aristocratic Edwardian domestic with its workers with the old stiffness, through the disruption of World War 1 and in abundant as well as informally-tentative inter-war era. Therefore, Naomi’s memoir can be understood as social-historical events of the twentieth century. “You may Well Ask”, in particular, depicts an exhaustive image of day-to-day existence amongst the middle and upper-class families during the time. In the memoir, Mitchison used the sorting through experience to depict the social order occurring within families and society. For instance, the important family events enable the reader to acknowledge the way of life in the houses including the place of the house staff, the common house utensils such as utensils and gaslighting, dresses, bathrooms, as well as the common relations within families such as neighbor visits. Using the experiential events of her childhood, we see Naomi growing up as an impressive girl with numerous advantages including money and wealth status. The illustration of wealth advantages is indicated in the family experiential event of well-to-do.
Naomi’s father is depicted as a physiologist and a renowned member of a college. The uncle to Naomi is the secretary of state and Lord Chancellor. The family gatherings were normally held in Clean, Perthshire where prayers were conducted. Mitchison found a way of depicting the small-small things of the upper class by recalling her experience when she wondered what they bought previously, the dresses they used, what they ate, as well as the tastes they had in China ranging from pictures to decorations. Sorting through experience depicted these haphazard life events, which could not be depicted using the chronological order of events.
While Naomi’s character and literary work were the primary emphases of this memoir, the general impact is to reflect the change in the community concerning the main social issues like gender, class, and policies of the domain. In essence, Naomi used memories or what is known as sorting through experience to expedite critical social issues at the time. Sorting out through experience was perfectly used to cover the early period of her life, which is exemplified throughout “You May Well Ask”. In this memoir, we could see Naomi as married and she began her new life without the restrictions of chaperone and anticipation of her recent peers. She aids impressively from the communal liberties made essential by the great war such as preparation for nursing career and builds a lifespan of families, inscriptions, government, and enclosed by a huge assortment of similar individuals.
It is clear from the experiences how the change in the twentieth century brought a big impact not only by war but also by the prosperity of politics. Naomi showed, through her experience, the change towards superior liberalization. Indeed, through her experience as a public upper-class figure, she showed that the individuals who were aided greatly by the sweeping change were women. The social qualities that were previously thought imprudent could now be seen due to the emancipation taking place after the great war. Naomi’s life and experience as depicted in this memoir can be perceived to reflect the social change occurring at the change. Besides, considering the existential of Naomi’s life, one can get the activist aspect of women during that time, which drove the change and resulted in the universal suffrage that is being experienced today. In the memoir, we could seethe accomplishment of a community and party-political individuality, which is evident in the present day. This is not to say that women were wholly ignored during the time by the political sphere. the struggle in Naomi’s experience was the beginning of the overall women struggle for the emancipation of women we see today.
Through her life experience, Naomi wanted to show the status of women in the political sphere and the difficulties women would endure to achieve political liberation. Not only did Naomi show this critical social phenomenon through her life experiences but also her mother’s inscription.
“Her radicalism was factual. Naomi often assisted females in the occupations, went to a female specialist when conceivable, and was motivated to imagine nursing as an occupation. Nevertheless, the progression is slightly soiled by the fact that she was female. Consequently, females had no vote, which was not fair as seen by the way suffragists behaved, which made me a suffragist in the end”
It is clear from the excerpt Naomi valued critical issues occurring during her time. However, she did not have written documentation to prove her point. Rather she relied on her memories to prove the existence of such social inequalities. In this extract, Naomi could be seen sorting through the experience of helping women choose careers, which is not perceived as belonging to women. Indeed, Naomi recounted how chauvinists in the name of ‘suffragists’ behaved in a way that did not respect women. Naomi used the experience to indicate in her memoir the place of women in society.
Use of Written Evidence
Mitchison sorting through experience could not only be evidenced on the reliance of memory but also on the use of other materials including letters, poems, written documents as well as other documentation, which she used to narrate her memoir. In “You May Well Ask” Mitchison used diverse forms of materials that pointed to some of the most important points in her life. Most of the letter and other documents were used to narrate some experiences as well as important events that Mitchison used to enrich the memoir. Most of these documents remained unpublished and could only be accessed later. The use of these documents is evidence that Michision not only depended wholly on memories but also other documents to enable sort through experience to narrative her life.
For instance, the early-unpublished document apprehended in the Naomi Library established her early mindfulness of these matters in narrating her experiences. The most important document that was largely used in the first three volumes of her memoir was letters. The fact that Naomi stored some of the written documents among various collections of her previous letters, consents us to take risks that she was conscious of it during the time of inscription. We could see the letters pointing to critical aspects in her life and telling about certain important experiences. In these letters, we could see how Mitchison selected only those experiences
While Naomi did not primarily focus on her suffragist views in detail in this memoir, the use of these unpublished letters indicates that importance. In any way, the focus was selecting important aspects of life that needed to be narrated. The narration is about females who are young rising in a new century, which gradually bids realistic chances for courageous and brilliant young women like Naomi. This form of experience is documented in one of its unpublished scripts
“I achieved to escape the cruelties of my early life and the reason that I breached was only learning … in some situations, it was part of commendable women’s liberation. Maya positively had a visualization of me as one of the first compeers of females to be enlightened … and be as knowledgeably free as university lecturers, and legislators”.
The script indicates the position of women and the urge of young women such as Naomi to rise above the common prejudices. Being selective of the experiences she portrayed and the selective use of materials to back her claims underscores her use of the technique of sorting through experience. Indeed, Naomi clinches the liberties of her stage. Naomi believed that she is exceptionally talented and is capable of achieving anything irrespective of the then obstacles, maybe what is essential, that she has an equivalent factualto try at least.
Equally, letters indicated how approaches to the association of females in legislation and civic life changed during the 1930s, Naomi acquired an accumulative active protagonist. Mitchison drums up support for the changes without succeeding. Moreover, she had the time to contribute to the political establishment. She also portrayed the use of extraordinary broadcasting for an inclusive range of journals that leans towards women’s liberation. even though these print forms were mainly used to indicate the occurrences at the time, they also indicated the life and experiences of Mitchison. indeed, a wide range of compatible families and generations bounded Mitchison. In “You May Well Ask”, she accounted for the successful people, particularly in their first London neighborhood where they first settled.
This memoir indicates how Mitchison was connected to her family life and experiences. Indeed, the selections of both memories and written documents whether published or not underscores her use of the technique of sorting through experience. The use of sorting through experience not only examined important themes but also the lifetime of Naomi. Indeed, the diffidence of this achievement from the convention of the Edwardian family so intensely designated in the two volumes is a suggestion of the remoteness she traveled her entire lifespan portrayed in the memoirs.
Conclusion
Taken together, in this volume, we have seen how Mitchison’s use of sorting through things added to the literary account of her life narrative. The use of supplementary elements apart from the memories remained significant albeit an unnoticed component of Naomi’s collection of narratives. Naomi is also seen using some form of non-fictional elements to portray some critical aspects of her life. The applications of other literary genres including poetry as well as unaccounted for documents enriched her technique of sorting through experiences. The use of these materials is seen as self-reflective and complements the fictional representation of her life. we have established how Naomi sort through experience in the third memoir “You may Well Ask” and the first volume “All Change Here”. Naomi used memories to present a new genre in her autobiography. Not only did sorting through experience established in memories but also from an assortment of undocumented manuscripts, which includes personal e-mail, journals, travel inscription, and text novels.
However, the technique of sorting through experience could easily be seen in her memories of experiential points in life. Through memoir, Mitchison has demonstrated knowledge of the problem of reflective elucidation of life as well as the associated critical illusory components. Naomi indicated the diverse sources she used to construct the text acknowledging the weakness of remembering exactly the events. The use of sorting through experience not only examined important themes but also the lifetime of Naomi. Indeed, the diffidence of this achievement from the convention of the Edwardian family so intensely designated in the two volumes is a suggestion of the remoteness she traveled her entire lifespan portrayed in the memoirs. Sorting through experience or rather recollecting the most important events in her life not only brings out a new genre in autobiography but also deals with subjectivity related to the autobiographic genres. Mitchison used the technique to bring out a positive light on her life experiences. She used the technique to make her work a more dynamic and dependable depiction of disposition. The use of the style has liberated the approach to the memoirs, shifted the presentation of the genre from the traditionally recognized ideals, and reasonably come up with genuine depiction compared with common life according to chronological order.
Works Cited
Mitchison, Naomi. All change here: girlhood and marriage. London: Bodley Head, 1975.
Mitchison, Naomi. You May Well Ask: A Memoir, 1920-1940. Orion, 1979.
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