First-Person Fiction

When we talked about “The Liar” in class JGB made sure to let us know that to write is to lie and to lie is to write. James, in “The Liar”  spends his time weaving intricate falsehoods to entertain and capture the attention of those around him. He can’t quite place why he is doing it, but it’s cathartic for him, a way of coping after the passing of his father. At the surface, this can seem nearly identical to “The Bubba Stories.” Charlene makes up Bubba as her way of having something “happen” to her. She also creates vastly intricate tales about a brother who doesn’t exist. It holds the attention of her friends and gives her a chance to create a story worth listening to. Both of these stories seem to be about kids lost in life, filling up what they don’t understand with lies. This isn’t entirely incorrect, but when it comes to “The Bubba Stories,” just isn’t the full story.

“The Bubba Stories” is a coming of age tale. It’s a story about learning to accept yourself for who you are and what your past made you. Charlene, entering college, had a deep desire to reinvent herself. She had an image of what she wanted to be: a french writer with a mysterious background. She made it clear that she desired to become a completely new person, she copied the mannerism of her roommate, she told listeners she had no future planned with her high school boyfriend. She strove to lose her virginity, convinced it would change her in some dramatic way, that it was necessary for her writer’s dream. Bubba was simply the manifestation of these refusals to accept herself. By creating him she was able to make, and control, a narrative around her life. Throughout the story she insists that nothing had ever happened to her, so she created Bubba. I’m sure, in part, this is true, but even just taking a glance at the rest of her family it was clear she had plenty to talk about. She had an intense mother, a party aunt, an uncle with Down syndrome, and a father she didn’t really understand. She had had plenty of things happen to her, but nothing she feels is good enough, trendy enough, to be shared with her closest friends. Therefore, Bubba was not a way to “make things happen to her” but instead a way to continually reinvent herself into the person she wanted to be, or be seen as.

Throughout the short story, Charlene writes awful pieces. She cannot maintain a good grade in her writing class; she can’t write anything of substance. It’s not until she finally writes about her home life,  letting go of the image she was trying to project, that she produces meaningful work. It’s when she finally lets Bubba go, letting go of the mirage of herself, that she comes to her full potential.