Autobiography: A Self-Recorded Fiction, John Barth
The Autobiography: A Self-Recorded Fiction is one of the short stories in John Barth’s short story collection, Lost in the Funhouse. Lost in the Funhouse is classified as a metafictional book. Barth put his stories in print form, but he used a metafictional voice that has characteristics fit for electric media such as computers. It is, therefore, evident that Barth appreciated the presence of technology when writing his literature works.
In this particular short story, The Autobiography: A Self-Recorded Fiction, Barth uses a metafictional voice to tell the story. The story has only one character who tells their own story in a prose form. As the title of the story suggests, the speaker is a prose fiction recording their own speaking voice. Barth based the story on his belief that where there is a voice, there is a speaker (Barth, 1988: 35).
The fictional story is about an unnamed child who feels lost due to their lack of identity. The father of the child keeps refereeing to the child as an unwanted child. Barth uses the phrase “unwanted child” figuratively. He has also made use of puns in the story to explain how the parents of the character look more like the novel itself, rather than the novel devices (Barth, 1988: 35).
The mother of the character refuses to name the child since it was born at the same time that the child’s father was taken to a hospital for the mentally ill (Barth, 1988: 36). The lack of identity pushes the speaker to a point where he too, sounds mad. He is not in control of the situation. He, therefore, pleads with his father using a maniacal voice to end it for him.
Reference
Barth, John 1988, Lost in the Funhouse. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, New York.
