Memoir: Story of the Survivor?

After our last class, I got to thinking again about the memoirs we are reading in our literature circles. Although these texts focus on very different events (rape, wartime displacement, poverty/homelessness, natural disaster), the memoirs do share this common theme: the story of the survivor.

I find it interesting that the "rowdy girls" group has chosen to name their project on Farewell to Manzanar "Survivorship." This seems a very fitting title, considering this memoir details one Japanese-American girl's experience surviving the internment of her family during World War II. This group also has mentioned how the narrator/author expresses guilt over surviving. True, this young woman survived while many other people (i.e. soldiers, Holocaust victims, Atomic bomb victims) perished. Further, this young woman was able to leave the internment camp, go to college, have a career and family, and live a normal life. Her success contrasts the life story of many Japanese-Americans who were interned. Having lost their possessions, properties, and jobs, many of these people became impoverished, depressed, and homeless.

As I reflect on this idea of the "survivor," I'm curious to know how you think this theme may or may not apply to your memoirs, too. In what ways do Jeanette Walls, Jon Krakauer, and Alice Sebold survive their tragic circumstances? In what ways do their memoirs tell (or not tell) their survival story?

Finally, I'm including a link you may find valuable. This link is an article entitled, "Survivor Guilt in Holocaust Victims and their Children." Although none of our memoirs deal specifically with the holocaust, they do raise the issue of survivor guilt and how it affects the human psyche. I encourage you to take a look at the article; you may find it helpful!

Defining Genre

Genre: "From the French genre for 'kind' or 'type,' the classification of literary works..."
Fiction: "..any writing that relates imagined characters and occurrences rather than recounting real ones." - Bedford Glossary

Nonfiction:??

How do we define the genre of nonfiction? Is it the opposite of fiction...any writing that relates real characters and occrrences rather than imagined ones. Is nonfiction prose? Can it be written in verse? Must it always be true?

What do we know about nonfiction as a genre?