In order to establish the relations between history and lifestory in memoirs, it is often crucial to establish as which type of protagonist the memoirist appears in his text. A memoirist may appear in his text as any one of four types of protagonists:

1. Eyewitness protagonist. Such a protagonist appears only in order to clarify how the text was written and on the basis of what evidence. Most often the reason for mentioning the author as an eyewitness protagonist is to help establish the text's truthfulness.

2. Exemplary protagonist. Such a protagonist appears in order to exemplify more general phenomena. He has no unique importance, and there are always other persons who could have exemplified these phenomena equally well.

3. Occasional protagonist. Such a protagonist appears when the story or argument presented in the text cannot be understood properly without mentioning him. Unlike eyewitness and exemplary protagonists, occasional protagonists are irreplaceable. This is the typical historical protagonist – all the princes and captains littering historical narratives are almost always supposed to be occasional protagonists.

4. Central protagonist. The appearance of this protagonist has and needs no justification; rather, it is what justifies the rest of the text. Whereas an occasional protagonist derives his meaning and importance from something other than himself, the importance of a central protagonist is taken for granted, and provides the meaning for the entire text, so that the importance of everything else is evaluated according to its influence on this protagonist.