The Sense of Estrangement From One's Previous Self in the Autobiographies of Arthur Koestler and Edwin Muir

In their autobiographies, both Koestler and Muir describe the sense of estrangement they feel toward a particular self in their past. An examination of the two autobiographies suggests that this sense of estrangement may serve as a complex defensive operation for coping with contradictory, affect-laden self-appraisals of change and sameness that touch upon the core of one's identity and reflect one's unresolved conflicts with respect to the essence of that core.