Because Bob Dylan is a celebrity who is influenced by both the mass and the media, his autobiography constructs an image he wants people to see in his life. In this sense, Chronicles is more like Franklin's autobiography than American Indian Stories and Narratives of Mrs. Marry Jemison. It is written by a person already known to most people, and whose status in society has already been known.
Franklin started his autobiography with a detailed description of the context of his birth, especially his ancestors who were prestegious and virtuous, like the image of himself written throughout the book. The Narrative of Mrs. Jemison starts with the story of Jemison's parents, who provided her with White identity she never loses till the end. By starting off with a vivid and detailed dercription of the beginning of his career as a musician, Dylan implies that his signing a contract with a major record compant was like a new birth to himself, and that music is an important theme that shapes his identity, or at least what is portrayed in this book.
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2 comments:
I like Wanda's point about Dylan being born when he signs the contract. I think we can relate this to the lies he tells about his past and family. Franklin was really careful to give a precise description of his relatives, because he thought they were important for understanding his identity. Dylan on the other side, skipped his whole childhood and family history as if they were irrelevant to who he was. But he did mention all the musicians he liked because they were the ones who made him who he is today. It was almost as if for him, those musicians were the relatives whose history we had to read if we wanted to understand who Bob Dylan really is.
I agree with Wanda's point in the matter, but I also do believe that Dylan realizes that he is an iconic figure;therefore, he only wants the reader to realize how that came to be. Dylan states that he does not relate to anyone in the music industry at the time,and the fact of the matter is that there is truth to that statement. Dylan does not dance around with the fact that he is famous; the reader knows that he is famous and as a result Dylan does not give off a sense of doubt (about the matter). He does not want to seem overly-modest because in doing so he will appear to be full of himself. He is simply telling his long and arduous story.
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