Abstract
Form nor content: Rachel Cusk’s empty self In this article I discuss Richard Rorty’s ideal of narrative self-creation in relation to Rachel Cusk's trilogy Outline (2014), Transit (2016) and Kudos (2018). I will focus in particular on the tension between individual freedom and the weight of social relationships. I will show that we can discern a modest ideal of narrative self-creation in Cusk's trilogy that is not just linguistic in nature, but stresses the relational and intersubjective dimension of self-creation. Moreover, Cusk's ideal is explicitly articulated from a female perspective. The emphasis is here on the fundamental interdependence and vulnerability of the self, and on the scaffolding yet also constraining influence of social relationships.
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