Writing Oneself as Another: Rousseau, Saïd, Barthes, and Perec
Autobiography and memoir writing require not only deep introspection but also a great ability to reconstruct memory. Much like journalism, the author must step outside themselves, viewing their past as if it belongs to a separate character. This process of self-othering is central to the works examined in this essay. For Edward Saïd, this multiplicity and othering serve as tools to make his character more accessible for analysis, while Rousseau reflects on his childhood as though it were a separate persona that shaped the self he later became. Both engage in this process to justify their experiences and, in a very human way, to be understood. Perec and Barthes, on the other hand, use self-othering to critique memory and showcase the fluidity of identity. They argue that the self cannot be fixed, let alone captured in writing, but is instead fragmented and constantly shifting. Any attempt to reconstruct the self will always remain degrees removed from whatever "real self" might exist—if it exists at all. While the process of othering is a common tool in autobiographical works, the way these authors utilize it stylistically is of great importance. For some, it is a tool of reconciliation; for others, it is a rejection of the concept of the self as something that can be understood, captured, and portrayed.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions (1783) is often seen as the first prototype of autobiographical writing, rooted in a deep need to be understood. He organizes his work around three significant “sins,” each in a different part or “book,” framing these moments as essential to understanding his moral and psychological development. By exposing these personal failings, Rousseau attempts to be transparent with his audience, othering himself and inviting them to dissect his character. He says, “I am not made like anyone I have been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in existence; if not better, I at least claim originality, and whether Nature did wisely in breaking the mold with which she formed me, can only be determined after having read this work” (Book I, 17).
Rousseau’s tone here, however, is impossible to ignore. As a philosopher known for critiquing society (and here himself with the same frankness) his writing comes across as self-assured, even condescending at times. From the very beginning, he makes his attitude clear, and the choice to continue reading depends largely on how the reader feels about this unfiltered confidence. This tone remains consistent throughout the book, as he writes from the perspective of an older self-reflecting on his childhood, at times even narrating events from before his conception and birth. His recollection of events, therefore, promises to judge and expose as he would any other. While it is tempting for twenty-first-century readers to laugh at his assertion that he is like no other or at his claim that his sins somehow justify or set him apart, we ought to consider the historical context. At the time, his unapologetic openness—even with its ethical ambiguities—was certainly enough a bold and remarkable achievement.
At its core, Rousseau’s book is built on the belief that the self can be understood by connecting the threads of childhood, experience, and trauma to the person writing in the present. This becomes clear early in the first book, where he reflects on his childhood experiences with pain, authority, and familial love—and later connects these experiences to his relationship with Madame de Warens. Recalling that “punishment increased [his] affection for the person who had inflicted it,” (20). Rousseau begins the process of “othering” himself—distancing the adult writer from the child he once was, observing his younger self as if from the outside, and understanding the origin of his later sinful pleasures. This separation allows him to analyze how past experiences shaped the person he became, presenting his life almost as a case study of character formation.
Rousseau’s choice of language further underscores this tension. His tone shifts between vulnerability and authority, inviting readers into an intimate portrait of his life while maintaining an air of intellectual superiority. He writes, “I never promised to present to the public a great personage. I promised to depict myself as I am, and to know me in my latter years it is necessary to have known me well in my youth” (Book Four, 169). This mix of self-awareness and self-assurance makes his writing both engaging and polarizing, forcing readers to grapple with the question of authenticity: Is Rousseau truly revealing himself, or is he crafting a version of himself to be remembered and understood on his own terms? This ambiguity lies at the heart of his Confessions, complicating his claim to complete self-revelation and presenting a challenge for the “objective truth” of the line between confession and performance—a critique that has become central to autobiographical writing since.
While Edward Saïd’s Out of Place shares Rousseau’s reflective approach to autobiographical writing, his relationship with the self is far more fragmented and unsettled. Perhaps it is the distance in time between their writing, but Saïd’s modernist style and ideas reflect a much more fragmented understanding of identity. Unlike Rousseau, who structures his narrative chronologically to trace a coherent evolution of identity, Saïd writes in a more chaotic, episodic style. He examines seemingly minor moments that, in retrospect, reveal themselves as deeply formative. Saïd leans into the chaos and disconnection between his past and present selves, embracing the impossibility of achieving a unified identity. This fragmentation is heightened by Saïd’s experience of exile and his perpetual sense of being “out of place.” Through his writing, he others himself—not only by looking back at his younger self with the critical distance of adulthood but also through the lens of his ethnicity, cultural and linguistic background, and displacement. Saïd acknowledges this sense of disconnection as a constant presence, reflecting the complexities of his identity. He writes, “I regularly referred to myself not as ‘me’ but as ‘you,’” (Out Of Place, 17) highlighting the persistent gap between his lived experience and his inner self. This stylistic choice—addressing his past self as an outsider—underscores the fragmented nature of identity, not just for someone in exile but as a universal condition.
Despite their differing timelines, Rousseau and Saïd seem to agree that the self is shaped by place, family, and formative experiences. This echoes Freudian ideas: that one’s identity is built on the events and attitudes of youth. Both authors believe in writing as a tool for dissecting identity, with Saïd more explicitly embracing the multiplicity of selves through his language and reflections. Much like Rousseau, Saïd views himself as “gifted and unusual” (Out of Place, 60) and approaches his self-narrative as a means of revealing “truth” as he perceives it. As Ian Buruma notes in his analysis of Out of Place, “A memoir, after all, is a subjective account.” This criticism—of subjectivity and bias—is one these authors fully embrace, admitting the inevitable act of “othering” not only the self but also the truth. As Rousseau himself writes: “I have only one thing to fear in this enterprise; not that I may say too much or tell untruths, but that I may not tell everything and may conceal the truth” (Book Four, 169–70).
While Rousseau and Saïd use autobiographical writing and othering to explore and analyze the self—whether as a unified whole or as a fragmented entity—Barthes and Perec approach the genre with a far more critical lens, questioning whether the self can ever truly be represented through language. For them, self-othering is less about reconstructing identity and more about deconstructing it, exposing the limits of memory, language, and narrative coherence. They challenge the very idea of the self as stable, embracing instead the fiction inherent in the search for a “source” or a singular truth of identity. Roland Barthes fixates on the limitations imposed by language, arguing that writing fractures any attempt to create a cohesive narrative of the self. Unlike the chronological storytelling of Rousseau or Saïd, Barthes’ work abandons traditional narrative structures—there is no clear thread, no timeline, no storyline to hold it together. Instead, it unfolds in fragments and impressions, which, paradoxically, might present a more truthful representation of the self. For Barthes, the form itself becomes the critique, emphasizing the impossibility of capturing identity within the constraints of language.
“I never look like myself,” Barthes declares early in Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes (2), immediately questioning the concept of a stable, knowable self. He expands on this thought later, writing, “But I never looked like that! How do you know? What is the ‘you’ you might or might not look like?” (4). These statements, infused with self-doubt and rhetorical questioning, create a deliberate distance—not only between Barthes’ different selves but also between the author and the reader. Yet this distance becomes a powerful tool, inviting the reader to assemble a fragmented yet vivid portrait of Barthes through contradictions, unstated truths, and his provocative inquiries.
Barthes refines this technique in the section La personne divisée, where his use of “you” in place of “I” illustrates his ability to blend universality with personal introspection. By othering himself, Barthes paradoxically enables a more authentic self to emerge—one liberated from the constraints of linear narrative. He even acknowledges the irony of syntax, playfully interrogating its role in portraying the self: “In ‘myself, I,’ the ‘I’ might not be ‘me,’ the ‘me’ he so ostentatiously puts down; I can say to myself ‘you’ (…) in order to detach within myself the worker” (Moi, je/Myself, I, 168-169). This interplay between detachment and self-revelation exemplifies Barthes’ argument that the self is most honestly portrayed not through coherence but through the fluid, fragmented space language creates.
This method resonates with Perec’s approach in W, or the Memory of Childhood, though Perec takes the idea of othering to a more extreme level. By entirely othering his own life and creating a separate, fictional world, Perec reveals truths about his identity and memory that would be impossible to articulate directly. His dystopian depiction of a fictional world—obsessed with athleticism and conformity, perhaps originating as a trauma response—already reveals so much. This fictional world is juxtaposed with his reflections on childhood, particularly his experiences of loss and trauma during World War II. The tension between these two narratives creates a blurring of boundaries between reality and fiction, challenging the conventions of self-representation. Perec displaces his personal history, compelling the reader to draw connections between the constructed world of “W” and the silences within his autobiographical reflections. In doing so, he acknowledges the inadequacy of language and narrative to fully capture the self, turning instead to methods that allow him to showcase or uncover truths he cannot fully “recall” or articulate within the traditional confines of autobiography.
Perec often distances himself, like the reader, piecing together his identity through the fractured narratives of W and memory, finding a kind of duality in the parallel stories. The fictional narrative of “W” acts as a distorted mirror to his lived experiences, a deliberate strategy that allows him to articulate what cannot be directly expressed. Devices such as repetition, contradiction, and omissions work to displace him further, exiling the self in order to assess it from a distance. This sense of dislocation mirrors the instability of identity itself, as Perec suggests that writing about oneself inevitably distorts the truth. In W, Perec transforms memory into a collaborative exercise between author and reader, where the meaning emerges not from what is explicitly said but from what is left unsaid, from the gaps and silences that allow his fragmented self to take shape. Autobiography and memoir writing navigate the delicate interplay between memory, language, and the self, often relying on techniques of othering to explore identity in unconventional ways.
Whether one style achieves a more accurate portrayal of the subject better than the other is subjective, but all authors seem to agree that distance and othering an important too and a significant stylistic device in aiding the writer and reader in their mission to find the self portrayed. Together, these authors suggest that identity cannot be pinned down or captured; instead, it exists in the gaps between what is written, what is left unsaid, and what the reader interprets. The act of writing itself is one of othering, as it forces the writer to step outside their own experience and look at themselves from a distance. By transforming memory and identity into something external, writing inherently fractures the self, making it both the subject and the object of study.
Barthes, Roland. (1975). Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes
Buruma, Ian. (1999). Misplaced person, The New York Times
Perec, Georges. (1975). W, or the memory of childhood
Rousseau, Jean Jacques. (1783). The confessions
Saïd, Edward. (1999). Out of place: A memoir
