In an exploration of self-identity I have created a visual piece using a close of my own eye overlaid with text taken from my journals over the last two years. The choice of the eye is fairly self-explanatory, the notion of the eye being the ‘door to the soul’ is an inescapable reality – like many clichés – however, beyond that the choice was rather more personal in that throughout my life my eyes have been remarked upon as my most notable feature.
In using text from my journal I am reflecting the human need to record life, be it through journals, photography, anecdotes, etc, this condition is frequently noted by theorists: “we all make use of stories every day and our lives are shaped by stories…stories to confirm a sense of who we are”[1], in this way, humans are constantly employing narrative as a method of understanding oneself.
The form of the journal is particularly interesting from a psychological point of view, in search of a substantial self-identity I personally am aware that I use the journal as a point of reference for understanding my current situation. Essentially the journal is a scaled down version of the perceived necessity for historical education, ‘those who forget the past are likely to repeat it’[2] is a saying which Oliver James notes in his book on child psychology, he suggests that it is important to remember one’s past in order to avoid future transgressions, and this may well be the psychology behind the journal, along, of course, with an indulgent penchant for nostalgia.
Furthermore, it is interesting to consider the way in which the idea of the journal can evolve, the meticulous recording of oneself, the element of preciousness of one’s chronicled words, the secrecy of ‘the diary’ we have seen emphasized by the Gothic genre over the centuries – all of these elements point towards a personification of the object itself. There is, over time, an inevitability that a journal becomes a character in itself, not in the dramatic sense but merely because of the boundaries of such a medium, one cannot record every detail, and so in allowing some actions and emotions to be omitted, the writer forms a depiction that does not quite mirror themselves but effectively creates a separate character, perhaps even a caricature, of themselves.
With this in mind one cannot help but consider the relationship between journal-keeper and journal-‘character’, which is, in my case at least, one of intense scrutiny, such as that of an author over their characters, in the words of the writer Elizabeth Bowen, the writer is a cruel judge who views their characters in a “relentless daylight in which nothing is hid”[3], and perhaps this is the self-deprecating appeal of the journal.
[1] Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royale, Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory 4th edn. (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2009) p.52
[2] Oliver James, The F*** You Up (London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2003) p. 5
[3] Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royale, Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory 4th edn. (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2009)
