The autobiographical ‘I’: a critical analysis of Mary Kom’s Unbreakable

Autobiographical narratives are inherently complex as they explore the intricate process of constructing autobiographical subjectivity. These writings engage the narrators in a dynamic “identifying” process with their readers, marked by acts of identification, implication, and differentiation. Autobiographies represent diverse identities, such as gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality, class, generation, family history, and political and religious ideologies. Greenwald suggested that personal identity and memory are intertwined, forming the essence of the self. Autobiographical texts are imbued with distinct cultural and historical contexts and can be viewed as rhetorical, engaging the reader/audience in arguments about the complexities of identity. This paper aims to closely examine the nuanced ways in which Mary Kom’s autobiography Unbreakable reproduces the ethnic and cultural identity of the self and to trace the unique cultural aspects of Northeast India as expressed through this autobiographical work.