The Singularity of Belonging: Self-Referential Narratives in the Fiction of Janet Frame

My study examines the life writings--autobiographies, biography, letters, and semi-autobiographical fiction--of Janet Frame, whose career began in the late 1950’s and continued for the next thirty years. Frame’s works have attracted critical interest because of her unique narrative style, for embedding self-autobiographical elements, and for the complex themes related to mental illness and the human condition. My study of Frame’s works uncovers new possibilities of understanding identity, belonging, and life writing. My analysis honors human interiority and agency. Frame’s autobiographical works disrupt the notion of identity as a purely social construct. It challenges post-structuralist theory that tends to downplay the vitality of the human subject as one with agency. My study further explores life-writing as an interplay of liminal sites. Frame’s life narratives allow movement to occur from displacement to a sense of belonging and exemplify individual agency as constructing identity. My study re-engages critical dialogue related to personal agency and how it is narrated in various forms of life writing. I employ theories related to the sites and phases of liminality, including those articulated by Victor Turner, Arthur van Gennep and Mikhail M. Bakhtin. I also engage with theories related to identity, including those of Jacques Lacan, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Paul Eakin’s writings related to the creation of identity in narrative, and Susan Stanford Friedman’s geographies of encounter and the relational fluidity of identity also support my analysis. However, my primary theoretical framework is Mari Ruti’s theories on identity and human agency. Bakhtin’s theories on the novel create an analytical framework.