Stephen R.Chinn composes a memoir during his time in prison to reflect on past events. His narration of the past gives us an insight into his identity, which he constructs primarily though story-telling. Rosenthal and Schafer state that “identity depends on storytelling” where a person “posing as someone else” can create stories “that certify the fake autobiography” (15). Their portrayal of identity and its flexibility through story-telling is reflected in the way Stephen builds up his identity for his ex-wife Dolores. Stephen tells Dolores stories to make her fall for him, developing a “rhetorical flair” after some practice and “speaking in a foreign language” (160) that eventually felt like his own. By telling her stories, he began to feel like “the creator of a universe,” except that he was not creating anything but a “a little fictional” identity from “new material” and books that he “read voraciously” at night (161-162). The word ‘creator’ implies that Stephen created something that was not rooted in reality but tales of fiction, which becomes evident when tells us that he made himself a protagonist called Stefan. He also tells us that he gave his character “a handful of personal charms that Stefan didn’t really possess” (162). It is very important to notice how Stephen refers to himself in third-person as though he is separate from the identity he is presenting to Dolores.
These cues, informed by none but Stephen himself to readers, raise the question of identity and authenticity. More precisely, they make readers wonder if Stephen is an imposter. According to Rosenthal and Schafer:
Impostures makes for scandal, admiration, and mostly for great stories (15)
In that sense, Stephen is an imposter because he tells Dolores stories to gain admiration and appear greater than he actually is. However, in a broader sense, being an imposer “entails shedding one’s previous identity to take on a new one,” (Rosenthal and Schafer 11). Therefore, from that perspective, Stephen is not an imposter because he does not entirely shed away his previous identity, as some of the things he told Dolores were rooted in real life events and childhood stories, even though he wasn’t always too sure that certain things actually happened. What is striking is that Stephen does not shy away from revealing the gaps in his memory, especially when he asks: “Did I dream him up” (161). He also does not shy away from informing readers about the times he impersonated his father’s voice, such as when he says, “I summoned his voice to recite the same poems to Dolores” (161). The fact that Stephen informs readers about the methods he used to gain Dolores’s admiration reveal characteristics and beliefs of a confidence man. According to Lindberg, a confidence man believes that “boundaries are already fluid” and that “there is ample space between his society’s official rules and its actual tolerances” (9). Therefore, it becomes very easy for a confidence man to adopt an identity and become a self-made man whose motive is “self-creation” (7) which is what Stephen does. Nothing about his motives are malicious or disruptive of “social bounds” (9). Instead, as Lindberg puts it, Stephen is simply trying to create an “inner effect, an impression, an experience of confidence” (7). With this reading in mind, it can be concluded that Stephen’s conception of identity is very fluid and flexible, much like the confidence man.
Some questions on this topic:
- Given that this is a memoir, what do the gaps in Stephen R.Chinn’s memory tell us?
- If Stephen points out these aspects of his identity does that make him appear more fake or more truthful in his memoir?
- Do you think what Stephen did to Dolores is justified?
References:
Rosenthal, Caroline. & Schafer, Stefanie. “Imposture and Authenticity: The Economy of Identity.” Fake Identity, New York, Campus Verlag, 2014.
Lindberg, Gary. The Confidence Man in American Literature. New York, Oxford University Press, 1982,
Hmm, very interesting indeed. In regards to your last question, I actually thought that Dolores was into his ‘lie’ and was just indulging him for the sake of it. I assumed that they both knew that there were fallacies present in his stories, yet both chose to just enjoy them for what they are. Nevertheless, after reading your post, I’ve been introduced to an aspect of Chinn’s ‘identity,’ which I never realized was present. The elements of the so-called conman that he seems to carry and display in his construction of the stories he told Dolores.