MAKING A STORY OF ONE'S OWN LIFE. PERSONAL NARRATIVE AND COMMUNICATIVE MEMORY IN «PAUL SCHATZ IM UHRENKASTEN», BY JAN KONEFFKE

Abstract

This essay offers a reflection on the concepts of identity and personal narrative, a line of argument that is closely interlaced with a subject’s capacity to self-representation. As self-representation is necessarily composed upon remembrance processes, the question of memory as an element that directly influences the formation of an individual’s identity becomes an emergent topic. Bearing this objective in mind, I shall highlight the notion of biographic continuity, the ability to elaborate a personal narrative, as an essential prerogative to attain a sense of identitary cohesion and coherence. On the other hand, I will argue that not only experienced memories play a key role in this process; intermediated, received narratives from the past, memories transmitted either symbolically or by elder members of the group or, what has been meanwhile termed “postmemory”, also influence the development of an individual’s identitary map. This theoretical framework will be illustrated with the novel Paul Schatz im Uhrenkasten, written by German post-Holocaust author Jan Koneffke.