Jean Murray All Writing Is Autobiography Summary

2. “Writing autobiography is my way of making meaning of the life I have led and am leading and may lead” (Murray 228). Murray used these words in his article, “All Writing is Autobiography” and they were very eye opening to me as I read about his ideas on autobiography writing. Murray suggests the all writing is an autobiography because it helps us express whats inside even if we don’t necessarily mean to and without directly talking about oneself. After Murrays column , “OverSixty” he says, “I wrote it in part for therapy, and it began as a note to myself several weeks after the experience to help me cut through thr jungle of thoughts and emotions”(228). Murray uses writing as therapy and says that all his pieces are autobiograpical because they sometimes have to smallest glimmer of his childhood or other events in his life but he hides it inside a story. Another way that Murray defends his argument is when he says, “We become what we write” (230). Writng gives one’s self to become who they want to be and express it. Even if you don’t

The last couple writings, or essays that I have written could be interpretted as autobiographical in Murrays words. My junior year in highschool and we had to write a short story in my World Literature class. At first my paper was just a creative story about a character I had made up, but eventually I started to realize the character was what I wanted to become in the future. The character had my goals and my ambititon. Murray made me relaize that my short story was an autobiography when he said, “He not only sees himself but begins to make himself or remake himself” (230). I had realized that I protrayed my goals through this character that I had made up. We were basicallly the same person which makes me agree with Murrays defintion of autobiographical writing. I finally see that my assignments in highschool could be seen as an autobiography even though originally I was trying to write a short story about someone I had made