The memoir showcases the life of a woman with a troubled childhood growing up in Ireland in the mid-20th century. O’Faolain charts her struggles and achievements in different junctures of her life as she navigates various social barriers. Growing up at a time when society repressed women, O’Faolain felt misunderstood and limited as a woman with progressive ambitions. Moreover, the sense of alienation due to her dysfunctional family with an alcoholic parent. She is candid and self-deprecating in writing about her issues and failures in romance and her career as well. Thus delves into the internal conflicts between her principles and deep desires such as feminism and domesticity. Therefore, as a self-declared feminist she had to deal with her inclination to seek her happiness in men through sexual escapades. It is a self-portrait of a struggling woman trying to find her place in the world while battling internal conflicts and other external forces.
It is not an account about triumphing her inner problems but more of an insight into herself and the issues she still struggled with. She narrates of the rewarding career that saw her interact with celebrated literary writers and journalists of the 20th century. However, she acknowledges navigating the workplace before the women’s movement a few years later. Therefore as a woman in a male-dominated career, she fought for the appreciation and recognition she deserved. Hence the title ‘Are You Somebody’ references the question she faces as a middle-aged woman from random people. Consequently highlights her struggle with finding a place for herself after forsaking the traditional marital life for her career.
O’Faolain offers a glimpse into her life as a middle-aged woman and acknowledges its challenges such as loneliness and desirability. She also acknowledges the issues of addiction that affected her childhood as she exhibits the same familial patterns. Also the uncertainties about marriage and finding the ideal partner hence her failed attempts at relationships and romance with both women and men. She owns up to her decision to choose the free non-chaotic life of being childless and single at her age. But admits to the sense of loneliness that brings forth the internal conflict of whether the decision was worthwhile. She yearns for the thrill her life has conjured up to that point by freeing herself from the chains of domestic life. Thus, the motif of contentment becomes the essence of the memoir in that what does it mean and whether there is such a thing.
