Life is a Narrative

Life is a narrative. What we do, as people on this earth, each person whether they like it or not is a living breathing narrative. A narrative sounds like such a serious or complicated thing that you read when someone passes away. In reality, it’s a diary of a person’s life. According to Robert Burton, in his book Artists of the Floating World says that “a narrative, is a meaning-making activity, a highly deliberate rhetorical construct” (pg 37). This is a very scientific way of saying, it’s a story told by the writer about their life choices, actions, and their view of the world around them. The book An Artist of the Floating World, Kazu Ishiguro tells us the narrative of a man named Masuji Ono. He describes through Ono, his life story. Ono’s life hasn’t been easy for him and here, in his narrative, he is able to communicate to us the way in which what has happened to him in the past has shaped who is in the present. Which is very similar with almost anyone’s own narrative, our past does play a part in what we do every day.

Ono in detail describes the very awkward and unhappy relationship he had with his father. Ono is an artist, we find out, but as a boy his father didn’t believe that being an artist was a very respectable position. He says in Ishiguro’s novel, “Artists, live in squalor and poverty” (pg 46). Instead of being supportive and proud that Ono has such talent, he mocks him and demotes him. He even went as far as burning paintings that Ono had done just to erase the possibility of any talent. It is very clear that Ono vividly remembers this event in his life and describes it in detail. He uses this situation to try to help us understand where he’s coming from, why he is the way he is.

When an event like this happens in anyone’s life, it’s one of those memories that will be ingrained in your mind forever and will affect you throughout your life. Sadly, the awful things that happen to us do really impact our daily lives. We can’t erase our memories. No matter how hard we try. The way we are treated by other people will affect how we act and respond to those we encounter. I remember as a very little girl going to one of my friends’ house to play. My parents were very cautious about allowing me to go to other people’s houses, so they had to meet my friend Emily’s mom and dad before I could go. They did meet them and approved and I was able to go to her house. After we were outside for a while and wanted to come back in, Emily’s dad was at the door waiting for us and screaming at us! We had been ‘playing for too long, our feet were muddy, and we shouldn’t have been playing in the neighbor’s yard.’ It wasn’t as if we had done anything wrong! We were 5 for goodness sake! My dad hardly ever yelled at me, this was totally new to me. He even sort of hit Emily! I will never ever forget that! I was very intimidated by my other friends’ dads at first because of that experience! It’s amazing how those feelings of embarrassment and shame come up even now sometimes.

Just as Ono’s memories seem to have affected his life, my life has been influenced by my past and things that I have dealt with. I think that anyone who has had some sort of difficult experience will admit to it changing who they are today. We can’t really get away from our past, we can only hope to live daily.