Nina Berberova: The Italics Are Mine

 Word Count: 541

From The Italics Are Mine by Nina Berberova

“I now see a kind of compensation for what I lacked as a girl. I sought not only the profession itself, but the act of choosing it, that act of conscious decision” (69).

“The realization of my first strong desire to choose, to decide, to find, to move myself consciously in a chosen direction gave me for my whole life, as I now see it, a feeling of victory not over someone else but over myself, not bestowed from on high but personally acquired” (69).

This story is a look at Nina Berverova’s childhood through the lens of her older self. Through this lens we get to see a more accurate assessment of her motivations as a child. The most interesting connection to me is the idea of her obsession over choosing a career being based in the idea that she had felt trapped as a child and felt she could not make her own decisions. Nina wanted to decide her future career as a child because she wanted to have something in her life to make her own conscious choice on, which she could not do in any other area of her life at the time.

The rest of the story contains a description of what occurred during this time she was attempting to choose a career. The stories are all based upon one thing, the fact that she felt trapped. She saw the structure of a family, as a bird's ‘nest’ which holds and hides babies with the intent of defending and protecting them. This is how she sees her family and it is why she hates the expression of affection, especially within her own family, because she feels that it is not based in love but rather in a need to protect, which she says is “not only repugnant, but humiliating” (73). She experiences this ‘nest’ like she is a prisoner in need of escape and freedom. It is evident that she desires to be free from the limitations of her childhood, and to be free from her family’s protection.

This protection provided by her family is seen as a form of control in Nina’s eyes because under this protection she cannot make any decision herself, regardless of the danger or the lack thereof. Everything is chosen for her because that is safer for the parents. This is why she says, “I developed a profound aversion to false comfort and cosyness” (77), because this ‘comfort’ was no comfort to her at all, in fact it was the opposite. This comfort, and in turn her family, became a representative for her own lack of autonomy. Her story ends with her saying, “Life was gradually becoming a reality from which I had no intention of hiding behind anyone’s back” (77). Through this lack of control, she realized that she wanted autonomy and to do that she would never be able to hide, because that is a form of protection and protection is a lack of choice. That is why she felt she needed to choose her career at that moment in time. To Nina, freedom is being detached from anyone who would want to protect or defend her and instead being able to make her own decisions to protect herself.