In his Confessions Jean-Jacques Rousseau tells the story of his life from the formative experience of his humble childhood in Geneva through the achievement of international fame as novelist and philosopher in Paris to his wanderings as an exile persecuted by governments and alienated from the world of modern civilization. In trying to explain who he was and how he came to be the object of others' admiration and abuse Rousseau analyses with unique insight the relationship between an elusive but essential inner self and the variety of social identities he was led to adopt. The book vividly illustrates the mixture of moods and motives that underlie the writing of autobiography: defiance and vulnerability self-exploration and denial passion puzzlement and detachment. Above all Confessions is Rousseau's search through every resource of language to convey what he despairs of putting into words: the personal quality of one's own existence.
