The Narratology of the Autobiography: An Analysis of the Literary Devices Employed in Ivan Bunin’s “The Life of Arsen’ev

As most secondary literature on the autobiography confuses the relationship between author, narrator, and hero/heroine, this study begins by analyzing this problem. Ivan Bunin’s The Life of Arsen’ev can be best characterized as «autobiography as the creation of fiction, told exclusively from a grown-up perspective». Special attention is paid to the relationship between the childlike-hero, grown-up hero/heroine, and the narrator, to the extent that the fictional narrative is based on primary material from Bunin’s life.