Lane Moore’s How to Be Alone: Deconstruction of Contemporary Identity

Abstract

This study explores contemporary concepts of identity as a post-postmodernist perception in Lane Moore’s (2018) Memoir, How to Be Alone. The significance of this study is that it examines the impact of cyberculture on human connections and the role of technology in shaping human perception of identity and personhood. It also sheds light on the effects of the internet in creating new social phenomena like ghosting and allowing individuals to transgress social boundaries. The study assesses the representation of the self in the memoir and its effect on the reinforcement of the author’s voice. It reveals that How to Be Alone is a text that adheres to the post-trauma paradigm that integrates a narration based on resilience and humor. The study further concludes that Moore’s memoir endorses twenty-first-century generic conventions and signifies the importance of the memoir, as a genre, in forming individuals’ social and cultural features. The study employs cyber-criticism, post-trauma theory, and post-postmodernism to evaluate the text’s generic conventions and narrative techniques. It offers fundamental inquiries: It questions the integration of technological conventions into post-postmodernist societies and examines the effect of this incorporation. It also inquires about the evolution of trauma. Finally, it has queries concerning post-postmodernist ideals and their development in the 21st century.