Fictional Autobiography- Preventing Its Obscurity

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Gymnastic Genres and Other Obscurity Shields When I was a young child, a man broke into my home, removed a long pole from his jacket and pointed it towards my best friend and dog, Marcy. At that moment, Marcy vanished from where she stood and then I saw her hugging the wall but not the way she would always hug me; more like a whale hugs dry sand. What feelings, literary strategies or deeper meaning does the passage above address? The feelings of sympathy and sorrow are real. The perspective, simile and tense show a literary strategy and, regardless of whether the event is true, such a traumatic account tells a more meaningful story of an emotionally true event. My account above is fabricated, like the autobiography entitled Fragments by Benjamin Wilkomirski. The only difference between them is the intent with which they are written. Upon realizing that the above passage is a fictional account, the feelings associated with it may become less significant. Having a flexible perspective on genre, interpreting emotional truth and reading for literary worth will challenge the obscurity that Fragments would otherwise fall into. The reader must challenge the concept of genre in order to protect Fragments from obscurity. The autobiographical genre of Fragments gives it a certain authority among similar fictional accounts. The author of The Wilkomirski Affair describes this authority as illumination (Maechler 281). When reading an autobiography, readers are drawn to sympathize with the character more so than in a book of pure fiction. Wilkomirski draws a specific audience of holocaust survivors in to relate to the torment and experiences he writes of. Upon realizing that Fragments is a fictional account, it is no longer comforting for those who were drawn to believe his experiences. One must challenge the concept of genre by deciding who is responsible for the
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