Life Lines, Life Connections and Biographical Traces/Forms

Roberts, Brian (2004) Life Lines, Life Connections and Biographical Traces/Forms. In: Narrative, Memory & Identity: Theoretical and Methodological Issues. University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, pp. 119-137.

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Abstract

This article examines how we connect the myriad of events and feelings we
experience - to render our lives meaningful. We imbue are experiences with
meaning through relating time tenses, such as the past to the present, and
attempt render ‘life’ comprehensible, ordered and continuous. The lines of life
that are formed, using a variety of life connections, are not necessarily
according to a strict chronology. They may twist and turn within our
conceptions of time and be reinterpreted as we record, retrieve, rehearse and
relive the past, present and future. The article argues that the ideas of
motivation and fantasy need to be addressed more fully within narrative and
other biographical analysis by apply notions of traces and forms and, further,
that the ‘biographical’ itself is being radically transformed. The article consists
of a number of exploratory notes and speculations rather than following a
conventional format.
Yet the celebrity is usually nothing greater than a more-publicized version of us.
In imitating him (sic), in trying to dress like him, talk like him, look like him,
think like him, we are simply imitating ourselves … (Boorstin, 1963: 83)
Nor can one say with confidence that any popular hero, however ludicrous - say,
the hippie - will not be the progenitor of a new way of life (Klapp, 1969: 255)

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