Constructing Personal Identities in Holiday Letters

Abstract

A collection of holiday letters is analyzed using the grounded theory method to generate a matrix of relationships among descriptive categories and conceptual dimensions of this epistolary genre. The final step of the grounded theory protocol analyzes holiday letters as a genre of writing that conveys personal stories set within a bracketed period to achieve ongoing autobiographies. The narratives create positive identities for the writer and his or her intimates, and depict those autobiographies as progressing toward the good and the preferred in the dominant culture. Discussion focuses on the ways in which holiday letters manage the dialectics of contradictions between modernist sensibilities, desires, and selfhood, and the postmodern social conditions in which they are written.