Bolboaca1

Denisa Bolboaca
Dragos Manea
Texte
18 Nov
Recapture of the self: Life and Story in Okkervil Rivers John Allyn Smith Sails song
In this essay, I will analyse the concept of the implied author and the analogy
between life and story in Okkervil Rivers John Allyn Smith Sails song. The term
implied author refers to the author evoked but not represented and it creates
effects as ambiguity, but also freedom of interpretation, while the analogy
between life and story often found in narration it is understood as the study of
subjectivity, self and identity, and it expresses credibility, verisimilitude, even
empathy between the audience and the protagonist. In the song, both concepts are
linked together in order to emphasize the idea of existentialism , man seeking
continuously for himself in a society which has lost its real values.
The implied author has only a virtual existence in the work and can be
grasped only by turning to the traces left behind in the work by the creative acts
of production, taking concrete shape only with the help of the reader. The implied
author is a construct formed by the reader on the basis of his or her reading of
the work. If the process of construction is not to simply confirm to the meanings
that readers want to find in the first place, it must be based on the evidence in the
text and the constraints this places on the freedom of interpretation. It would
therefore be more appropriate to speak of reconstruction instead of
construction.

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Wolf Schmid in The Living Book of Narratology assert his belief about the
implied author towards the different definitions some scholars offered. He makes
reference to a fictitious author which is conjured up only through the readers
imagination. It is developed a relation between the real world of the reader and
the fictive world of the protagonist. The reader does nothing else but projecting
itself in a parallel universe, trying to understand the character.
In the song is exposed the life of John Allyn Smith alias John Berryman, an
American poet and scholar who suffered a trauma after his fathers suicide never
being able of surpassing it. One of the narrative strategies of the narrative is self
narration because despite of the real author, it is used the first person of singular,
the protagonist announcing that he will start to tell his story .
According to Wolf Schmid, self narrations aim is to individualize I as
speaker or agent and me as character or actor. These acts come to underline the
self-disclosure, self-reflection, self-criticism that may develop self-control, selfconstraint and self-discipline.
John Allyn Smith Sails refers to Johns dramatic life episode he desired to
end with his suicide. Self reflection is underlined by the apparent conclusion in
the first stanza Live and love, which refers to what he couldnt fulfill in his
lifetime. After the trauma, his life was meant to be an endless agony. It seemed
like he was in pursue of his identity, but finally ending with his death ,as he did
not succeed in matching his inmost desires, living and loving, with the demands
of the real world. Another narrative strategy is highlighted through this idea,
representing the ego-identity.

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The link between life and narration and the exploration of lives (including selves
and identity) through the exploration of narratives have traditions going back to
Freud ([1900] 1913), Allport (1937), and Murray (1938). However, this close
connection between life and narrative is said to require a particular
retrospectiveness that values life as reflected and discredits life as lived.
Michael Bamberg regards also in his book another important aspect of
narratology, Identity and Narration. He emphasizes the idea of exploration of
lives, a theme that aroused the curiosity of researchers in the narratology field.
Discrediting life as lived is owed to the superficial way we pass through life,
without knowing to appreciate all we live because we are not able of surpassing
obstacles, moving forward, letting behind the past and looking over the future.
The reflection of life is seen only upon our experience , only when you
accomplished your mission on earth , you understood the sense of life, you learnt
the important lessons and you have what to teach to your children and nephews.
This is the reason why John Berryman was not able to take life for what it is
worth, he only saw a torture in it. His closure of the real world had developed his
complex interiority, losing his ego, self-esteem, power and desire to live. The
reflection of John Allyn Smiths life was never seen by him. This is what the
song is trying to do, to reconstruct John, to emphasize his possible development,
his spiritual progress which are seen when you look behind only to learn from
your mistakes, to see how strong you became, how many obstacles blocked your
way through life. The song which reveal Johns life focuses more on the audience,

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attempting to give them a lesson or perhaps to make them aware of the loose of
the spirit, of the relation with God, and also of the relation with ourselves.
To conclude, I consider that man is always seeking for his way in this
world because it is related to something that coexists with us and it is hidden in
our inmost senses, desires. It is the connection with God that establishes the
divine in us, following our goals, our dreams and learning to reconsider the
deeds, the words, the persons , appreciate every moment of life and never look
down on anyone unless we want to help them out. John Berryman, the protagonist
of Okkervil Rivers song that is also the implied author, the person to which they
they refer, has lost his connection with God when he attempted to suicide. The
song tries to explain indirectly that although he was living a trauma, the suicide
was not the proper way to deal with those situations. In the chore of the song, the
verse I want to go home expresses the fact that he is not able to find himself
anymore, so he feels undefended, insecure. The last verse I feel broken, I want to
go home comes to amplify the feeling and the inability to cure his spiritual
wounds. Interpretation stands at the basis of the life-stories, being the aesthetic
tool that helps the audience to take into consideration their own lives, to discover
or rediscover themselves, to compare them with the character presented and
listen to their own feelings, desires, impressions related to the theme of the
narrative.

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Works cited:

Bamberg, M.
Identity and Narration
In-text: (Bamberg, 2014)
Bibliography: Bamberg, M. (2014). Identity and Narration. [online] Lhn.unihamburg.de. Available at: http://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/article/identity-and-narration
[Accessed 17 Nov. 2014].

Schmid, W.
Implied Author (revised version; uploaded 26 January 2013)
In-text: (Schmid, 2014)
Bibliography: Schmid, W. (2014). Implied Author (revised version; uploaded 26
January 2013). [online] Lhn.uni-hamburg.de. Available at: http://www.lhn.unihamburg.de/article/implied-author-revised-version-uploaded-26-january-2013 [Accessed
17 Nov. 2014].