Mary McCarthy – Memories of a Catholic Girlhood – Intersubjective Exchange – Patterns
“As an intersubjective mode, it lies outside a logical or juridical model of truth and falsehood, as models of the paradox of self-reference have suggested….” Smith & Watson (13)
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from Smith & Watson: “But autobiographical truth is a different matter; it is an intersubjective exchange between narrator and reader aimed at producing a shared understanding of the meaning of life.”(13)
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“If we approach self-referential
writing as an intersubjective process that occusr within the writer/reader pact, rather than a true-or-false story, the emphasis of reading shifts from assessing and verifying knowledge to observing processes of communicative exchange and understanding.” Smith & Watson (13)
To The Reader
Yonder Peasant , Who is He?
[“There are several dubious”…]
A Tin Butterfly
[“Uncle Harry tells me”….]
The Blackguard
[“This account is highly fictionalized…”]
C’est le Premier Pas Qui Coute
[“This story is so true….”]
Names
[“A good deal of stress has been laid…”]
The Figures in the Clock
[“There are some semi-fictional touches here.”]
Yellowstone Park
[“Except for the name of the town & the names
Of the people, this story is completely true.”]
Ask Me No Questions
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1 comment:
I think that the italicized chapter before "Ask Me No Questions" is a perfect representation of how Mary McCarthy utilizes an intersubjective mode in her autobiography. I feel as if Mary has had bottled up emotions regarding her grandmother's death the entire time she was writing the rest of her autobiography. It was as if she needed to spill everything else out before she was ready to tackle the most recent heartbreak in her life, the death of Grandma Preston. By reading this italicized section, you can tell that Mary is pained, extremely pained to have to write about another death, this one so close to home and her place in time. She describes this as a "sensitive nerve," and I know exactly what she means. Sometimes you just can't bring yourself to write about a certain event until you know how you feel about it, until you have fully reflected on the event, until the weight has lifted.
Also, the section reveals that Mary knew much more about her grandfather, the "open book." The irony in that statement is that Mary has devoted 50-written pages to the character of her grandmother and how she has affected her life. Her grandfather is mentioned sporadically throughout the text, while a whole chapter is devoted to the enigma that was her grandmother. Mary clearly knows more about her grandmother now that "rememory" has kicked in.
Lastly, the final sentence of this section, "After them, the Preston name will be extinct," ties directly into the story that she is about to tell. A piece of the Preston lifestyle is going to live on through "Ask Me No Questions" for all eternity. The Preston line, and most specifically Augusta Preston, is going to be remembered forever through Mary's words.
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