Narrative Ideitntiy In Isak Dinesen’s Autobiography Out Of Africa

With the narrative turn in recent decades, the "narrative identity" has become a hot phrase in many of the humanities and social sciences. Accordingly, autobiographical narrative, as a typical literary genre which aims at identity construction, is under scrutiny with the insight cast by the development of narrative theories. Isak Dinesen, as one of the most outstanding writers in Denmark even in the whole Northern Europe, and twice nominated for Noble Prize, is worth gaining our much attention. Out of Africa, as Isak Dinesen’s most important fiction and autobiography, brings her international fame. The success of the film version in the Oscar Prize brought Isak Dinesen high global status, and at the same time, brought a surge of study to the book.Mainly based on the narrative theory of Paul Ricoeur, this thesis focuses on the author’s identity construction in Out of Africa. Simply put, narrative identity is to construct one’s identity through narrative. In Out of Africa, through the autobiographic narrative of her own experience and cognition, the writer aims to construct her unique identity. This paper discusses Isak Dinesen’s identity-construction through three aspects. By studying her three representative identities, the strategies the writer employed to construct her unique identity through her narration are revealed.Firstly, this thesis studies Isak Dinesen as a white westerner:This part mainly focuses on Dinesen’s root in Europe and her gradual identification with Africa. She shows a strong sense of literary superiority and aristocratic superiority. On the other hand, in the book Out of Africa, Dinesen expresses her truly identification with the Native people as well as some white people, for example, Denys Finch Hatton. But, the white ones she identified with were the typical ones who did not belong to the white society at that time, but the exiles from white society. Therefore, Dinesen may identify with those who identify with Africa. The white people, in her opinion, should not be robbers, but friends of Africa. This thesis will reveal Dinesen’s identification with African Natives and nature, so as to show her open cultural attitude and the effort for transcending race.The second part mainly pays attention to the gender narrative in Out of Africa. Like other traditional women, Dinesen shows her feminine loveliness through cooking. In addition, as a woman writer, Dinesen shows some unique narrative features which are different from male writers in Out of Africa. On the other hand, she does not want to be the traditional inferior one in the African society. She took a part as a creator, leader, and judge in Africa, so as to present her willingness of having the same power as men and express her manliness. At the same time, she could not avoid some dilemma as a woman:her farm failed because of financial difficulty; she avoided mentioning her sufferings in her marriage as well as her relationship with Denys.In the third part, Isak Dinesen’s identity as a writer is discussed. This part mainly discusses the metafictional narrative in Out of Africa. In the book, the author states explicitly or implicitly her attitude towards literature creation as well as her preference to storytelling which stands for an old tradition of literature creation. She also reveals the functions of various forms of literature creation:story-telling, writing, and the unique African artistic literature. Besides, by the way of listening and recording others’ stories, she also found that she could make others realize their identity. At the same time, she constructs her own identity as a storyteller and a writer too.Identity is a flowing and continuous process. The autobiographical narrative can help the author to shape a comparatively coherent self, and hopefully, an ideal self may be constructed by autobiographical narrative. Isak Dinesen in Out of Africa displays excellent strategies to construct an ideal self through autobiographical narrative.