Abstract

A lack of consensus regarding the ontological, literary, and historical status of autobiography characterizes the autobiography theory and criticism produced during this century. The ongoing debate, however, does little to account for the actual experience of writing, or reading, an autobiography--an experience akin to the human experience of telling and listening to stories. Instead, discussions about the nature and function of autobiography tend to reflect Romantic concepts of the self and of language. Such a view of autobiography is in fact expressed by two eighteenth century autobiographers, Diego de Torres Villarroel and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in their respective works. However, the very existence of the Vida and Les Confessions, and of autobiographies in general, attests to the paradox of autobiography: the autobiographer writes his story first of all not as an act of self-reflection, but rather out of a need to have it read by another. Autobiography is an act of communication between the writer and the reader. ;Mikhail Bakhtin's writings on the relationship between the self and the other, and of the inherently dialogic nature of discourse, serve as a point of departure for examining the dialogue between the writer and the reader. In autobiography, this dialogue also has its echoes in the past, in the stories of those others who inhabit the autobiographers memory. Each of these dialogues is present in the autobiography text, and each determines and defines the other. Structuralist narrative theory, which permits analysis of the different textual levels of narrative, serves as a systematic means by which to examine these relationships between the self and the other in the autobiography text. ;Analysis of Torres Villarroel's Vida and Rousseau's Les Confessions reveals the narrative need for the other in writing one's story. Both writers define the otherness of the other as an antagonistic or hostile force, and both attempt to eliminate this otherness in their narratives, through the use of various narrative techniques. Throughout the discourse, however, the other as other remains a presence. This suggests that for all of their attempts to create monologic works, both Torres and Rousseau must acknowledge the need for the other