writing_womans_lives_symposium_paper_book_v2

[…] and slowly everything changed inside me. Yes of course it did. Because suddenly it
was all different, what I did had a value that made people ready to pay, up to that time
everything I did had a value because nobody was ready to pay. It is funny about money.
And it is funny about identity. You are you because your little dog knows you, but when
your public knows you and does not want to pay for you and when your public knows you
and does want to pay for you, you are not the same you. 7
This distinction between textuality and authenticity can be exemplified from The Autobiography
of Alice B. Toklas. This sensibility is depicted through a conversation between French art critic
Ambroise Vollard and a young painter that Gertrude Stein hears and Toklas voices:
Conclusion
You are a nice young man, gentle and intelligent, but to the important personage you
would not seem so, you would be terrible. No they need as representative painter a
medium seized, slightly stout man, not to well dressed but dressed in the fashion of his
class, neither bold or well brushed hair and a respectful bow with it. You can see that you
would not do. So never say another word about official recognition, or if you do look in
the mirror and think of important personages. No, my dear young friend there is art and
there is official art, there always has been and there always will be. 8
In conclusion, as contemporary critics of women’s life writing, having examined Everybody’s
Autobiography and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, we have come out with certain sensibilities
concerning the issues of representation and textuality. First of all, we observed that Gertrude Stein
broke with traditional autobiographical pact as a referential link between the author / the name of
the author and the person s/he writes about that is herself or himself, because Stein challenged the
validity of language as a means to depict selfhood. To her, selfhood could not be reported / written
yet fictionalized. Thus, ultimately freed from the necessities of language, Stein’s narration flows
without punctuation and the rules of standard English as a means in highlighting the multilayered
forms of reality. There are no rules in her writing, but her idiosyncrasy can be immediately received
by the reader and it evokes relevant sensibilities of characterization and narration she used to apply
in her other works of fiction. To talk about her fictional style while commenting on her
autobiographies may sound strange, however, she rejects any kind of distinction between her
fictional and autobiographical narratives. She believes that the effect of reality can also be derived
from the way it was depicted. By treating her autobiographical subject, then, she denounces the
assumed truthfulness of the traditional autobiographies. Thus, by applying her fictional techniques
such as multiple narrators / personas, fragmentation and stream of consciousness, Stein provides the
reader with a multilayered depiction of her life in early twentieth century Paris with her partner Alice
B. Toklas. Therefore, not only her own portrayal but also a gallery of portraits is exhibited through
her autobiography. Moreover, considering her ethos as a female author – though she never stresses
her female identity – she transgresses the hierarchy and the canon of male autobiographers as her
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas becomes a bestseller. Hence, her voicing of Alice B. Toklas in the
example of Matissé’s art is unique, where out of a single author come two authors of the same life.
In this example, Stein’s voice does not overwhelm Toklas’s voice. Stein has her way of artistic
comment whereas Toklas has hers. However what distinguish Toklas from Stein is her practical, trueto‐life
examples. Toklas has her feminine responses to life. And into her autobiographical narrative
she exposes her female identity, which has been only recently the concern of the French feminists.
Thus, Stein’s autobiographies can be defined as the precursors of post‐structuralists of late twentieth
century. What is more, with her autobiographies, Stein puts forward an ontological significance
through the writing process. She frequently questions whether her narrative is responsive to outer
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