Norms That Define the World

World comes from the Old English, weorold, which roughly refers to, Age of Man. It could also refer to the human experience or condition. In Catalina De Euraso’s – Lieutenant Nun, her autobiography takes place in none other than a masculine focused world. In the 17th century, women were not allowed to write or to have a public opinion and for her to even tell her story she had to self-fashion into a man. Moving into the 20th century we find James Joyce and his collection of short stories called Dubliners. In particular, the novella, The Dead, speaks to the human experience as a whole. Joyce’s story, and main character Gabriel, are set in a time when their World, Ireland, is in turmoil. The Irish Revolution is in full force, and the many characters in his novel present represent both sides of the situation, to stay true to their Irish roots, or give in to the English rules and customs. These environments fashioned how each author regarded the world, and how they put forth these outlooks in writing. In this paper, I will examine how each author interprets his or her world. By looking at the context and wording in passages from each text, I aim to show how their worlds, at times, revealed similarities while other times showed us how different these two worlds were.

Looking at the world through an author’s autobiography versus an autobiographical fiction, one finds that most have similar characteristics. For instance, they can encompass both drama and struggles, while the characters can be humorous or serious, formal or informal. However, there are differences in these two genres in respect to how they shape the authors own world. In Catalina de Euraso’s autobiography, we are given the 1st person, factual, view of the wo...

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...an up close and personal account of her life adventures and choices she made. When she lived, and what social class she was a part of all affect how she shapes her identity through the text. James Joyce’s autobiographical fiction is not quite as personal; however, he is able to convey some of his ideals and politics through the story of Gabriel Conroy’s self-realization and toils with social norms in Dublin, Ireland. Author Samuel Butler once said, “Every man’s work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself”. Throughout the course of a text, be it fiction or non-fiction, one is able to paint a mental portrait of who the author is, be it adventurous or timid, confident or doubtful, humble or arrogant. Their understandings of the world, and place in it, will fashion how they tell the story.