Article Abstract:
A text provided by a member of Oregon's Alsea Indian tribe is a personal experience narrative. William Smith's text, recorded in 1910 by anthropologist Leo J. Frachtenberg, is entitled 'The Death of U.S. Grant, an Alsea Indian' and concerns a killing that took place on the Siletz Reservation in Oct 1903. Direct speech and emphasis on the storyteller's viewpoint place the text within the personal experience genre. Smith's view of the killing as the result of an intertribal conflict differs from the historical record, which describes the killing as the outcome of a drunken fight.
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Article Abstract:
Herman Melville in the novel 'The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade' draws on many semiotic stratagems used in con games, including personal narrative. The confidence man in the story, assuming there is one, uses personal narrative to present himself as vulnerable and non-threatening to create intimacy with his intended victim. Melville presents multiple characters in the novel who complain of people's lack of confidence while suggesting through the title and other hints that they are one confidence man assuming multiple disguises.
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Article Abstract:
Faulkner's novel 'The Reivers' illustrates the use of personal narrative to unify the personal and community realms. The character Lucas Priest narrates an incident from his childhood in which he and two family retainers stole his grandfather's automobile. With his own grandson as audience, Lucas emphasizes the lesson his grandfather taught him concerning this episode, a lesson which transmitted community values through a code of behavior referred to as the Southern code of the gentleman.
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