Style

The style of the excerpt from Society’s Child - My Autobiography is personal and accessible. The text resembles a first-person narration short story, but because it is part of an autobiography, it covers personal, real-life events which are presented in a subjective manner.

The narrator of the autobiography, the adult Janis Ian, presents an episode from her past, using her perspective from the time of the events. At that time, she was a fifteen years old girl, and, as a result, the style of writing mirrors the way Janis thought and talked at that time: “Oh, no. He’d hit on the one thing that would sway me. Hadn’t my parents raised me to be a hero?” (ll. 263-265)

To further emphasize the teenage perspective on the events, the narrator uses the Italic style whenever she conveys the thoughts of her younger self during the events: “He probably thinks I’m behaving like a kid, a spoiled kid. Like an amateur. I don’t care! Right now I am an amateur.” (ll. 233-236)

The author combines two different genres, narration and lyrics, to give more authenticity to her story and to transport readers into the atmosphere at the concert:

Come to my door baby,
Face is clean and shining black as night
My mama went to answer… (ll. 5-7)  

Furthermore, the text begins and ends with the lyrics of the same song, giving it a symmetrical form....