Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood

Introduction

“Relating Narratives” appeared in Italian in 1997 and in an English translation by Paul A. Kottman in 2000. Following Hannah Arendt, Cavarero distinguishes what someone is – the qualities a definition can list – from who someone is, the unique person who appears to others in words and deeds. This uniqueness cannot be grasped by the self alone; it shows in the story of a life, which others tell. Cavarero develops the idea through examples: Oedipus, who learns his story from others; Ulysses, who weeps when he hears a bard sing of his deeds; Karen Blixen’s story of the stork; and the friendship of two women from the Milan feminist movement, one of whom wrote down the other’s life. The book describes the self as narratable, exposed and dependent on others, and was taken up by Judith Butler in “Giving an Account of Oneself” (2005).

Connections

Builds on

• The Human Condition1958 · Hannah Arendt

More works by Adriana Cavarero

• 1990In Spite of Plato