Page 67 - White Lives The Interplay of 'Race', Class, and Gender in Everyday Life

60 Narrating the self
it appeared that others did not produce a narrative because they presented
such coherent unified selves that there was no real story to tell. One example
of this was Deborah, a middle-class journalist and writer living in Clapham.
For her, the question of turning points did not strike a chord because, as
she said: ‘It’s difficult to say what’s just a natural progression and what’s a
turning point’. The version of her life and self that she presented to me in the
interview is one of inevitability and predictability. The events she mentioned
tend to focus on her working life, and the choices she makes are presented
as natural within their particular context. Her wholly normative position
may only be possible to maintain by remaining silent on other aspects of her
life. To some extent, the interview resembles a curriculum vitae, charting
progress from college to work. This is signalled in the first thing that comes
to mind when I asked a question about turning points:

BB: So, one way I have started it off with other people is to say, other
than perhaps becoming a parent, what are kind of key turning
points in your life?
Deborah: It’s really difficult to say. I guess, going right back would be col-
lege, because that was just a difference.
BB: And that involved leaving home?
Deborah: Yeah [questioning], but I mean I went to college in London, and
I lived in London so it didn’t really feel very much like that. I did
leave home; I think its more, I don’t know, just the independ-
ence of the way you’re taught and the way you’re treated I guess
is completely different. I guess, that was my turning point. And
also learning so much more about a particular thing . . . oooh,
what else?’
(Interview 40)

From the outset, Deborah was clearly defining the life and the self that she
was going to talk about. ‘Going right back’ means that she was marking the
beginning as being adulthood – going to college, reaching independence and
being treated with more respect. Her childhood was marked as off limits,
or not significant. Previous events that might have been given importance in
other people’s accounts – such as the periods spent living abroad in her child-
hood, her parents’ divorce when she was 13, her father subsequently leaving
the country – are not part of the picture of herself that she was presenting.
By marking this separation between the child and the adult, there was no
narrative produced that might lead to an explanation of how she came to be
the person she was. Her subjecthood was presented as an unquestioned thing
that just was, rather than something that requires a story to explain it.

Deborah: Maybe I think maybe going freelance and buying my flat were
probably turning points. Buying my flat was a big turning point,