Memoir means
memory is a nonfiction genre. To be more specific it is a collection of
memories that took place in an author’s life whether private or personal.
People confuse a memoir to be an autobiography. An autobiography tells the
‘story of a life’ while a memoir tells a story ‘from a life’. Both are written
from the first person point of view.
The term memoirs have often been used to describe works
that are more properly defined as autobiography, than the literary memoir.
Memoir has been used interchangeably with autobiography or "memoirs",
generally referred to in the possessive, "my memoirs" or "his
memoirs", which were much like a collection of different memories from the
author's life and thrown together. The structure or form of a memoir is essential
to enhancing and bringing clarity to the work. The form, also known as the
spine, shapes the story for the reader. The memoir is structured differently
from formal autobiographies, which tend to encompass the writer's entire life
span. The memoir focuses on the development of the writer's personality. The
assertions made in the work are understood to be factual.A memoir is how one remembers
one's own life, while an autobiography is history, requiring research, dates,
facts double-checked.
"A memoir is not a
factual recitation of history, though history is part of the story. It's a
recollection, amusing and merging
of images, dreams, reflections moments in your life's journey. A memoir is an
exploration of a part of your life-a complete life story is referred to as an
'autobiography'. A memoir and an
autobiography are written through the point of view of you as the main
character, the "I" of the story."
Some of the best memoirs written are by
Julius Caesar in the Middle Ages, Winston Churchill and Charles De Gaulle about
their involvement in World War II.
