Making the Implicit Explicit: The Narrative Self in Cavarero’s Relating Narratives
Introduction —
Discussions of selfhood often do not understand the ontological significance of relationships. The idea of the self and who a person is deserves being delved into in a way that maintains our connection to others as being of incredible importance to not only our material wellbeing, but understands that selfhood is relational. While a variety of relational views of the self has existed in a variety of philosophical and academic traditions, the one found in Adriana Cavarero Relating Narratives goes a long way in contextualizing the facts of one’s life with the ongoing creation of identity found in relations. In Caverero’s language, in order to understand ourselves, we need to understand the stories of “who” we appear as and the stories of “what” we think we are.
What: The Realm of Categorization —
Cavarero starts by analyzing the myth of Oedipus by differentiating between what she considers the goal of philosophy: the categorization of definitions and descriptions; and the realm of narration: the corporeal and contingent elements of a life. The goal of philosophy is to get to a “what” is the case; a categorization and division of parts into units for cognitive usefulness (Cavarero 8-9). The exchange between Oedipus and the Sphinx is used to illuminate the differences between these terms and how these differences are utilized by Cavarero (Cavarero 7-9). The scene of this exchange is that the Sphinx has isolated the city of Thebes from the world. By guarding the entrance and killing all those who dare to enter if they cannot give the correct answer to a riddle. (Cavarero 8). Oedipus is a hero, unaware of his actual parents and thus, the specifics of his circumstances and relations in the city of Thebes (Cavarero 8-9). He is the son of the queen of Thebes, whom he will later marry. Additionally, the man he will later kill, who was the reason Thebes was punished with the presence of the Sphinx, is his father. However, without knowing any of the relevance of Thebes in his origin, Oedipus reaches the sphinx and proceeds to listen and correctly answer the riddle (Cavarero 9). The sphinx’s riddle asks, “what walks on four legs then two, and finally three” (Cavarero 9-10) Oedipus is understood to have either answered “man” or “I/me” referencing himself and the broader category he is a member of mankind. (Cavarero 9). For Cavarero, this is incredibly telling and about the limits of philosophy and what it can tell us about our identity. Oedipus, the unknowing son, husband, and murderer of his biological parents can recognize himself in that definition of man, without knowing anything about his origins and what his life will mean (Cavarero 13). He can know and recognize “what” he is: a man. Yet, he is at a loss for the content, pattern, and significance of his relationships and bodily connections to the world. A key point of analysis here is that individuals are explicitly bound by their contexts and relationships. Whether they know it or not.
Oedipus, even with the self-revelatory nature of epic literature, cannot infer and does not receive divine knowledge of his past. This is important here because this shows each of us, that the work and design of our life limits our ability to see its effects and factoring into the trajectory of our life. Cavarero’s introduction to Relating Narratives focuses on this by reviewing and analyzing Karen Blixen’s story of the stork. Blixen’s story goes as follows: a man sleeping in his house is woken up by a sudden loud noise (Cavarero 1). The man gets up, and heads towards the pond where he thinks the great noise came from (Cavarero 1). He runs around, leaving footprints behind as he investigates the sound (Cavarero 1). Eventually, he finds the problem in the pond; a small dike or ditch that was allowing water and fish to escape (Cavarero 1). He plugs the hole and goes back to bed. In the morning when he looks out towards the pond, he is surprised to find that in all his running around last night, his footprints had configured the pattern of a stork near the pond (Cavarero 1). In light of this story, the question Blixen poses to herself and others is: “'When the design of my life-is complete, will I see, or will others see a stork?” (Cavarero 1). The moral of this story transposes well onto Cavarero’s example of Oedipus.
The story of the stork, like Oedipus’, tells us how our life and our relationships to others are constituted at on ontological and ethical level (Cavarero 1-2). A singular, unique being is awoken and spurred to action by external circumstances, in order to deal with them, they must leave the comfort of their solitude and expose themselves to the external world (Cavarero 1). Due to their resolve to solve the problem—whatever it may be—they endure and eventually overcomes the trials and finds the problem (Cavarero 1). In the wake of their actions, a unity, a design is left in the world. That unity, whether by him or others, is only seen at the end of his actions (Cavarero 1). While we are all not as fortunate as having such a grand revelation about the design of our life while we are living, the importance here is that through our action in the world we appear to others. We cannot live as a story, because it is always through our actions in their entirety of scope that inform what is present in the narration (Cavarero 2-3). Others can see the design of our life if they are actually watching the path we take, and thus, are in a better position to reveal and narrate our story and document our design easier than we can.
Our appearance to others, through our actions and deeds, is who we are in the world. It is what we leave behind and a history of existence. Our being is appearing (Cavarero 20, 23-25). Our memory, life’s work, and meaning of it is irrevocably tied to others (Cavarero 20). The wisdom of grief and the importance of relationships becomes further contextualized when epic literature like Oedipus is consulted. Immortality and legends become not the result of individual greatness, but of the continual importance, discovery, and engagement of our life’s work by others (Cavarero 23). Only they provide a continual basis for the “who” we are question to actually have relevance.
Who: Corporeal, Relational, and Contingent Uniqueness
The question of “who” can be broken up into two related, but distinct questions. First, what is the singularity of the patterns of our lives made by our actions? Second, what is the uniqueness of one’s situation, body, relationships, and scenes of action? Contrasting that with the “what”, Cavarero uses the figure of Man again. She notes how these categories of “what” are a kind of fiction (Cavarero 8). The figure of Man in philosophy functions by applying to everyone in an all-encompassing way precisely because the figure of Man is not anyone in singular (Cavarero 8). It is a body of traits, relationships, and norms that are supposed to be able to offer guidance or data for any question, while never being a lived singular person, having to make decisions (Cavarero 8-9). The figure of Man is a what, an idea with no human uniqueness or ties to anyone, it is not and cannot be a “who” (Cavarero 8). The “what” is the focus of philosophy; the generalizable, universal, fictions, and impersonal formulas of answers to questions (Cavarero 8- 9, 21). These are the things that have dominated what we call the tradition of Western philosophy since at least the time of Plato.
All the divergences, disagreements, and work while home to a wide variety of views and arguments, has always taken the same form of answering questions. Regardless of how the canon may look with the difference of answers. The questions of “who” one is, for Cavarero, are where everything about on the ground, singular, specific, and corporeal ties to other people and things come into the equation. Narration, rather than philosophy matters here (Cavarero 9-11). Now, Cavareo cites quotes from other thinkers here when she is exposing the intricacies of this relationship, but the most important one is Hannah Arendt (Cavarero 19-20). Arendt’s work on ontology, action, and being is the basis for Cavarero’s argument that action is the whole of the body of work of someone’s life. In Oedpius’ case, his solution to the Sphinx’s riddle was “I” or
“me”; however, he is still unaware of the specificities of his life, and what the meaning of his actions are in light of that (Cavarero 9-10). However, while he is an extreme example, Oedipus is not in an uncommon situation. It is in our actions viewable by others, not our own ideas, mental states, or intentions that amount to who we are. Only our actions and their appearances to others reveal who we are.
Those actions and subsequent appearance to others will necessarily engage others is what generates and causes the meaning of one’s identity and actions to be revealed, exposing the “who” for that person. We expose ourselves to others in our actions. In summary, Arendt’s model goes like this: identity requires another that can engage with you (Cavarero 20). Arendt calls this the exposure of oneself to another, which is necessary to guarantee an identity (Cavarero 20-21). This story and project of identity starts at birth. We are all born and unequivocally exposed in natality to our mother, father, and/or other caregivers (Cavarero 19- 22). Natality is an important ontological place in this model because it shows how tied and vulnerable we are to the whims of others and our existence is continually built upon our relationships with people who can wound and care for us (Cavarero 19-21). The project of giving ontological significance to birth and natality leads here to note how the first being we expose ourselves to by existing is our mother (Cavarero 21-22). By exposure, Cavarero means the external, and primarily the actions one takes (Cavarero 21). Mental states, intentions, and every bit of cognition is not tangible to others, but our actions are. Arendt cements the importance of exposure here by noting how the way we appear when we act is not only a part of our relation with others, it is the whole of our existence (Cavarero 21-22). Action is the agent of revelation. We do not exist as selves without acting; identity is revealed through action. That is the only thing people can really understand, differentiate, and interact with us through. Everyone is both actor and spectator in this world of exposure which produces identities (Cavarero 23-24). This scene of interactivity is what Arendt calls politics (Cavarero 21). However, while action is the origin for our stories generation of meaning, as Cavarero shows in her analysis of Ulysses, the importance of the unavoidable origination point of birth further shows how materially relevant and philosophically radical notion of the “narratable self” is. This model of what a self is and its origin mirrors the event of one’s birth, rather than death (Cavarero 21-23) We are constantly exposing ourselves to others by acting and thus providing new grounds for our narratable self. Which is a kind of continual vulnerability, showing who we are in terms of the effects, design, and meaning of our life (Cavarero 24). Anyone can be a king, traveler, or warrior in terms of finding themselves a member of an archetypical category, but only a singular, unique person can be that king, traveler, or warrior (Cavarero 24-25). Singularity is bound up with the limits and boundaries of the story of one’s life.
Cavarero’s examples that illuminates the importance of our actions in constituting our identity, or in her words the “who” is found in the one of Ulysses and his weeping when he hears his own life story told to him while he is disguised (Cavarero 17). In Homer’s Odyssey, Ulysses is not ignorant of his birth (Cavarero 17-18). He knows of the relations and circumstances of his origin; there were no unintentional incestuous acts or patricide here. Ulysses’ example shows that the question of “who” is not completely reducible to origin, and parentage. It is more than just knowing the people like your parents who will contribute in some way to your makeup and life’s work, it is a continually informed process. The key part of Ulysses’ journey for Cavarero is when he hears his life’s story told to him when he is in a kind of disguise; which gives a good metaphor for how removed yet close one is from their being through appearance. When Ulysses hears his story for the first time, he weeps (Cavarero 17, 25). For the first time, he sees himself in the story that he was the protagonist in, but never the author (Cavarero 26). Finally, the actions of his life are put in context with trajectories, meanings, and logics unreachable to him while he was engaged in his life.
This division of “what” and “who” Cavarero lays out in Oedipus and Ulysses fits into her project in two ways. First, by developing this ontology of revelation, exposure, and relationships, Cavarero shows how elevating birth in its generative importance leads to a better account, model, and ethical basis than a kind of omniscient, totally self-aware individual (Cavarero 19-23). Second, by critiquing the notion of Man found in the assumed character of a lot of philosophical models in what is normally called the Western tradition—especially from Descartes onwards—she shows how women and natality have a deeply generative and ontological significance (Cavarero 20-22, 26-28). Now, in regards to the behaviors and interactions available in this kind of ontology, one can either provide care or do harm (Cavarero 28). In exposure, we are all vulnerable to the other actors in this asynchronous and unscripted scene.
Concluding Remarks: Bringing it all Together
In Cavarero’s relational ontology, one way care can and does enter and continually presents itself in the fold is where the desire for one’s story meets the knowledge and experience of hearing it. This desire to hear one’s story is exemplified in Ulysses’ weeping when he hears his story (Narratives 32). His heroic deeds are caused by his desire to hear his story (Narratives 33-34). While no one can know the design and figure of who they are, our memory and sense of self works in an autobiographical way (Narratives 35-37). There is a narratability here in our stringing together of an attempt at identity (Narratives 37-38). For larger reasons Cavarero and Arendt have noted, the autobiography or stringing together of our identity inevitably falls into the traps of “what” we are and thus can never provide us “who”, but the desire for autobiography is not separate from that of a desire to hear our story from others.
Biography and autobiography are bound up in the same desire for an understanding of our origin and place as a unique story (Narratives 27-28, 37-40). This desire for the story of our origin and biography comes from some kind of recognition of the importance of care and its relationship to narrative (Narratives, 37, 40-41). If we are narratable, it follows that one would want their narrators, their biographers, to weave together a story about them with care (Narratives 43-45). However, while there are a lot of strengths to relational ontology of the self and seeing being as appearing, the ethics that arise from this could use some more weight.
Avoiding a strict commitment to more deontological prescriptions or prohibitions of behavior has its strengths, the idea of care and fostering uniqueness needs a more powerful normative dimension. There needs to be a consideration of “which” stories from others matter and how one should react in the face of stories that reduce a “who” to a “what” of a negative social category. Discrimination, deceit, and sabotage are all parts of what can motivate narrators. Historically, false stories have been revealed that actually obscured uniqueness rather than foster it, and they have not provided much help to the people who are being told they are undesirable in their time. Cavarero’s ontological contributions and model of identity does provide more generative possibilities because of how they take the fact that we are relational beings seriously. Further work and contrast with classical stories and metaphors is needed to help create a more explicit and robust ethic of narration and contextualization for the individual now, since we are often not given the freedoms and powers of the demigods and epic heroes Cavarero analyzes. In a turn to how should one tell the stories of others and view their story themselves, Cavarero introduces the idea of “faithful storytelling” in her analysis of Karen Blixen’s life (Cavarero 143). This kind of storytelling is not about introspection or generating only specific and correct investigations ordained from the beginning into biographical data. Rather, biographies in this style of narration seek a simple goal. Give breathe to the design of someone’s life by engaging what they left behind with an understanding there is no author in an omniscient sense (Cavarero 140-141). The goal is not invention but a following through the conclusion of a specific approach to a story that is a “totally apparent figure of unique existence that suggests unity” (Cavarero 140-141). Suggestion and the unfinished analogy is important here. Empirically, what the incorporation of race and sex, and racialized sex into Cavarero’s model of selfhood is that there a whole bunch of relational actor-spectators, yet, some aim to take sadistic pleasure in harming others and seek to ruin their designs. Others unknowingly do so, and then there are those on the spectrum between. Conceptually, what one takeaway should be is: that big narratives can and do have big influences on the horizons of possibilities thought, and actions taken. In order to combat large stories, we should cultivate recognition of those big stories. Cavarero notes that epic literature displays more revelatory situations than regular life does (Cavarero 14-15). While I agree that seeing one’s singular design is ontologically difficult at best, the unknowing stork designer knew where the pond was.
We can actually see some of the limits to our actions and engage with them. Big stories can be changed by the organized efforts of singular actors pushing the boundaries, subverting them, digging under them, swimming rebelliously in them, and so on. That is a part of the ethic that this model displays, one cannot live their life as a story, however, one can continually push the edges of the page they find themselves on (Cavarero 140-143). There are better ways to do that, but that general move to action stems from the recognition that everyone who was, is, and can be will have a story. Some will be horrible because they commit evil deeds, some will be sad because they were born in the wrong place at the wrong time, and some will confuse us because of how imperfect humans are. Despite those realities, in order for a better one, we need to ensure the capability of engagement with any story, and the support to those we find historically obscured for immoral reasons.
While there may be no easy, pithy, one-liner to encapsulate exactly how to value which stories should matter to someone in their understanding of themselves, these accounts being worked into conversation with Cavarero’s model and incorporating the work of thinkers that focus on how we differentiate people and stories will help us create a process. This process will not eliminate all the pain, harm, and wounding that can occur in seeking out one’s biography. However, it will help deal with it and minimize it the more it is used. By incorporating this acknowledgement and basis for action, we ensure that what is unknown to the “what” can be made into a platform for proper engagement with a “who” by naming and following a “which”.