Searching for the Self: Classic Stories, Christian Scripture, and the Quest for Personal Identity

by Adrian T. Smith

This was a very one-sided conversation. Usually, however, there’s two-way traffic. Our audience impacts the telling of the tale in which our identity takes shape. The self-image we project, and the plotline we own—both are impacted by our audience. When a group of teenagers share stories, the need to “hold the floor” is paramount. This social constraint tends to skew the way narrators depict themselves. Suppose the narrator participated in a traumatic event. How do they describe their role? McAdams notes a bias toward extreme images of self: “as brave and courageous (John Wayne), [or] caring and concerned (Florence Nightingale).”662 Audience also shapes the plotline we own (or are allowed to own). Take the stories typically told in support groups for caregivers married to patients with Alzheimer’s disease.663 Caregiver narratives oscillate between two extreme plotlines. One, with caregiver as “martyr,” is a subgenre of tragedy. (The caregiver fights a losing battle, persevering in a relationship that becomes increasingly one-sided and one-dimensional.) At the opposite pole, caregivers who position themselves as “realists.” Their I-have-my-own-life-to-live plotline is a subgenre of rebirth narratives, in which they project a future freed from the increasingly futile caregiving that consumed their identity. My job isn’t to pass judgment on either narrative. Rather, I would simply note that caregivers tend to feel guilty about voicing the second plotline. Accordingly, the sec...