| Abstract [eng] |
This master’s thesis, “The Models of Self-Fashioning in Unė Babickaitė-Graičiūnienė’s Diary”, explores the models of self-fashioning as depicted in the diary of a Lithuanian actress during the interwar period. The study primarily focuses on Unė Babickaitė-Graičiūnienė’s diary entries from 1928 to 1932. The objectives of the analysis are achieved through an examination of the diary’s autograph and edition, a discussion on the diary’s genre, and an exploration of the concepts of public and private mediums. The first section of this paper delves into the concept of self-fashioning by exploring its origins and definition. Self-fashioning is understood as a negotiation between one's inherent “self” and the cultural and institutional influences that shape the concept of the “self”. This perspective allows for an examination of the diary as a text from a specific cultural period with its own temporal and societal constraints. Consequently, it sheds light on how a female actress perceives herself within the socio-cultural conventions of the time, including her acceptance or rejection of normative notions of femininity such as honesty, humility, loyalty, beauty, and freedom. Additionally, it explores how the diarist combines various social and aesthetic categories, such as the dichotomy of being an actress versus a housewife. To analyse these aspects, the study draws upon theories of diary and autobiography writing, as well as feminist criticism, ego documentary, and gender studies. The analysis section presents the diary’s autograph, which consists of two notebooks and a work calendar, and the edition of the diary, with a specific focus on its genre. This is followed by a critical reading and analysis of the diary, employing the aforementioned theoretical approaches. The study reveals Babickaitė-Graičiūnienė’s tendency to think in oppositions (e.g. self and alien). The diarist’s aesthetic and moral paradigm is shaped by her early experience of beauty (aesthesis) as a childhood connection of nature, as an ability to perceive the world with body and soul, and the Christian tradition. As the writing of the diary develops, her aesthetic and moral paradigm becomes influenced by Eastern cultural attitudes and the contemporary media of the time, particularly women's beauty magazines. For the diarist, beauty extends beyond the physical and spiritual realms and encompasses public appearance, social lifestyle, domesticity, education, and morality. The diarist’s aesthetic paradigm becomes contrasted with her childhood home, school, and salon environment, where, in relation to the other (as ugly), she comes to identify herself as alien, different from the people in her home environment. The diary also reflects upon the normative social roles imposed on women in both the public and private spheres, with some roles being rejected while others are accepted. Significantly for the context of the diarist’s time, Babickaitė-Graičiūnienė attempts to reconcile several roles simultaneously: being a housewife, a wife, an actress, a daughter (although this identity is only possible retrospectively), and so on. The diary also serves as a medium of maintaining linguistic identity. This work contributes to the field of research on women’s ego documentation by exploring how Unė Babickaitė-Graičiūnienė constructs and navigates her identities within societal and cultural frameworks through the aspect of self-fashioning analysis. |
