Of the three scenarios which we considered in class while discussing Foucault's essay, "What is an Author?", I was most drawn to scenario two, which involved the celebration and subsequent denunciation of a book which attempted to chronicle a Native American boy's experience with cultural assimilation. I think this scenario proved most thought-provoking for me because it was not just hypothetical but actually based off of a real-life situation involving author Asa Earl Carter (writing under the pseudonym of Forrest Carter) and his book The Education of Little Tree. Though the book was initially trumpeted as representative of Native American themes of simple living, tradition, and love of nature and though the book was thought to help revitalize Native American literature, when it became known that Carter had been a white supremacist and Ku Klux Klan member, controversy colored the book's reputation. There were several issues at the heart of the controversy: the fact that what was a fictional work had been presented as a factual memoir, the gap between the descriptions of Cherokee culture promoted in the book and actual Cherokee traditions and language recorded by experts, and the disconnect between the uplifting messages of the book and the author's racism early in life.
While Foucault would analyze this situation and find it fascinating how we expect consistency and coherence in the collection of an author's work, and while it is ironic that the same work can be both glorified and repudiated depending upon our perception of the author, I cannot help but believe that particularly in this case it does matter who is speaking and the meaning of the work is affected by the author's intention. How could even the most staunch Formalist or Structuralist who advocates for the death of the author honestly hold to their belief that any knowledge of the author is extraneous to the meaning of the work given this scenario? I would not be content doing a formalist critique of the unity between the book's form and content when I knew in the back of my mind that this author who wrote about the Native American experience had, in fact, as a white man, promoted racist attitudes thorough out his lifetime. There is no question in my mind that The Education of Little Tree must be reread and reexamined for the possible existence of white supremacist tones. When a work is believed to be representative of a people, then the author makes all of the difference. I'm sure that the argument exists that no literary work can truly be representative of the lived experience of many individuals, but when these individuals claim the work as representative, then this is a different story. I believe that the meaning of The Education of Little Tree must lie partially outside of the text. Foucault would also make note of how we expect an author to be authentic, trustworthy, transparent, and representative and how so often our concept of an author functions in this way. While this may be merely a cultural construct and an illegitimate expectation to put on authorship, I believe that it is permissible to ask about the author's intentionality and transparency when the integrity of a group of people that has been historically oppressed is at stake.
These questions regarding the role of the author in the realm of literary theory have clearly been relevant for Oprah Winfrey as she has both composed and edited her famous book list. Although she promoted The Education of Little Tree on her television show in 1994, calling it "very spiritual," she removed the book from the list of recommended reading on her website in 2007 due to the controversy surrounding the author. In another infamous case regarding the question of whether an author is allowed to present a fictionalized memoir as factual, Winfrey lambasted author James Frey of A Million Little Pieces for lying and exaggerating about many parts of his supposedly real memoir, which Winfrey had promoted in her book club. Check out video coverage here:
Oprah Winfrey and James Frey
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