engleski

Confessionsof a Sensitive Thinking Being: Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić's Autobiography

Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić’s Autobiography: The Confessions of “a Sensitive Thinking Being” Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić wrote her Autobiography at the request of JAZU of which she was the first female member. Her narrative begins with a declaration that her autobiography can never be „an interesting history of the life of a distinguished author“ since she leads a peaceful family life but it can only be a record of the development of „a sensitive thinking being“. As her introduction reveals, gender is at the heart of her story. Distinguished authors are implicitly male, their lives are public, eventful ; she, on the other hand, is a woman, her life is in the private sphere, and, thus, uninteresting to the public. So it is only the story of the gender neutral sensitive thinking being that’s worthy to be told, and it is as such that she is their equal and not an intruder in to the all- male national literary cannon. Her development is depicted following two plotlines: the first, seemingly dominant, records the outward influences on the author, starting with a childhood memory of a wild nature which made a strong impact on her imagination and thus triggered her creativity. Nature given credit as the original source of inspiration, she proceeds to describe the influence that different, predominantly male, members of her prominent family, as well as some other great minds of her time, had on her mind and sensitivity, shaping, thus, the value system she adhered to all of her life. The other plotline, running parallel to the first, tells the story of the author's voice finding its way out. It is the chronology of her passionate desire to write dating as long back as she could remember and the chronology of her- self imposed denial of self expression due to her conviction that writing is in conflict with her duties as a woman. Thus, the two identities she held equally dear − that of herself as a writer and that of herself as a dutiful women − were conflicted, and the peaceful resolution of this conflict is the happy ending of both this plot and the Autobiography. In this paper I intend to analyze the strategies the author uses in painting her the self-portrait with the special emphasis on the role gender plays in the image crated for the posterity. I will also comment briefly on the creative strategies and motifs from the Autobiography that found expression in her prose.

autobiograpy, articulation of the authentic self, emancipation

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