The Double Perspective

This is a framework I built using Vivian Gornick’s The Situation and the Story and Phillip Lopate’s To Show and To Tell. It is the theory that memory requires two selves: the self that experiences the event and the self that looks back on the event.

I began studying creative non-fiction, more specifically the personal narrative, in undergrad. Between undergrad and grad school, I spent three years developing this formula by annotating through anthologies of personal narratives to really see how each piece of the partnership worked.

When I moved on to study poetry at the graduate level, I stumbled upon archival theory, upon the concept of memory work and being a memory worker. What I found is that The Double Perspective is applicable to all forms of memory work. I am applying it now to this archive, my Drivers apply it to their memories – it’s not a mere matter of collecting, but creating meaning from that recollection.

Click each row to see what the partnership produces.

Built from Gornick and Lopate. Named and visualized by HW&Hh.