As you read a variety of text you may be intrigued by memoirs. For the written task 1, memoirs work very well. You may decide to write the memoirs of a character from a literary work that you read for Part 3 or 4. You may also come across a memoir or autobiographical piece on the Paper 1 exam. For these reasons, it is good to familiarize yourself with the conventions of memoir writing. Here are two samples of memoirs, several discussion questions and a list of defining characteristics.
Defining characteristics
Memoirs are easily confused with autobiographies. While all memoirs are autobiographical, not all autobiographies are memoirs. Memoirs are reflections upon one’s life, including the life lessons that can be gleaned from a section of one’s life. They are story-like and anecdotal, while autobiographies are the retelling of one’s own history. Here are several characteristics that you will want to consider when analyzing or writing memoirs. Try to find these same four elements in the memoir of George Orwell below.
Memoir
| Voice – In memoirs, we as readers are looking over the storyteller’s shoulder. They retell events directly to us, that is to say that memoirs are usually told in direct narration. | We hear thoughts that only the protagonist and the reader are allowed to hear. When Angelou writes ‘whater that was,’ we are meant to laugh, as we are placed in the mind of her when she was seventeen-years old. |
| Hindsight wisdom – In memoirs, authors usually look back on the events of their life once they are wiser. This hindsight wisdom is part of the narrative voice. | Angelou says ‘it was aweful to think the devil gave me that lie,’ which is a judgment made from a vantage point that is removed from the moment. She can comment and interpret how events unfolded. |
| Dialogue – Since a memoir is told as a story, characters are given their own voice. There is direct speech. Dialogue makes the story come to life and allow the reader to experience it first-hand. | Again, we have the impression that we are looking over the shoulder and witnessing the author’s life as it unfold before her. |
| Anecdotal – Memoirs are usually the retelling of several larger anecdotes. | The author tells us how significant moments help shaped her, Since these events were so influential, we want to know more about them. |
Sample memoir 1
Gather Together in my Name
Maya Angelou
1974
“Can you cook Creole?”
I looked at the woman and gave her a lie as soft as melting butter. “Yes, of course. That’s all I know how to cook.”
The Creole Cafe had a cardboard sign in the window which bragged: COOK WANTED. SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS A WEEK. As soon as I saw it I knew I could cook Creole, whatever that was.
Desperation to find help must have blinded the proprietress to my age or perhaps it was the fact that I was nearly six feet and had an attitude which belied my seventeen years. She didn’t question me about recipes and menus, but her long brown face did trail down in wrinkles, and doubt hung on the edges of her questions.
“Can you start on Monday?”
“I’ll be glad to.”
“You know it’s six days a week. We’re closed on Sunday.”
“That’s fine with me. I like to go to church on Sunday.”
It’s awful to think that the devil gave me that lie, but it came unexpectedly and worked like dollar bills. Suspicion and doubt raced from her face, and she smiled. Her teeth were all the same size, a small white picket fence semicircled in her mouth.
“Well I know we’re going to get along. You a good Christian. I like that. Yes, ma’am I sure do.’
My need for a job caught and held the denial.
Discussion questions
- What similes and metaphors are used in this short extract? How do they contribute to the characterization of the main character and of the owner of the Creole Cafe?
- How does dialogue contrast with Angelou’s comments about herself?
- What characteristics does this extract reveal about Angelou?
- What details contribute to a sense of time and place?
Sample memoir 2
Such, Such Were the Joys
George Orwell
1947
When I arrived to report myself, Flip was doing something or other at the long shiny table in the ante-room to the study. Her uneasy eyes searched me as I went past. In the study the Headmaster, nicknamed Sambo, was waiting. Sambo was a round-shouldered, curiously oafish-looking man, not large but shambling in gait, with a chubby face which was like that of an overgrown baby, and which was capable of good humour. He knew, of course, why I had been sent to him, and had already taken a bone-handled riding-crop out of the cupboard, but it was part of the punishment of reporting yourself that you had to proclaim your offence with your own lips. When I had said my say, he read me a short but pompous lecture, then seized me by the scruff of the neck, twisted me over and began beating me with the riding-crop. He had a habit of continuing his lecture while he flogged you, and I remember the words ‘you dir-ty lit-tle boy’ keeping time with the blows. The beating did not hurt (perhaps, as it was the first time, he was not hitting me very hard), and I walked out feeling very much better. The fact that the beating had not hurt was a sort of victory and partially wiped out the shame of the bed-wetting. I was even incautious enough to wear a grin on my face. Some small boys were hanging about in the passage outside the door of the ante-room.
‘D’you get the cane?’
‘It didn’t hurt,’ I said proudly.
Flip had heard everything. Instantly her voice came screaming after me:
‘Come here! Come here this instant! What was that you said?’
Discussion questions
- Why is the young Orwell reporting to the Headmaster?
- What impression of the adults do the physical descriptions of them imply?
- What does the phrase ‘I walked out feeling very much better’ suggest about the writer’s attitude towards events?
- How does the boy’s reaction reveal his lack of experience?
If it were done, when 'tis done 