Illinois State University ISU ReD: Research and eData Theses and Dissertations 5-13-2019 When Inexpressible Becomes Expressible: The Duality Of Narrative In Graphic Memoirs Of Growing Up And Trauma Nina Hanee Jang Illinois State University, hopelander12@gmail.com Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Jang, Nina Hanee, "When Inexpressible Becomes Expressible: The Duality Of Narrative In Graphic Memoirs Of Growing Up And Trauma" (2019). Theses and Dissertations.edu/etd/1129 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ISU ReD: Research and eData. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ISU ReD: Research and eData. For more information, please contact ISUReD@ilstu.
WHEN INEXPRESSIBLE BECOMES EXPRESSIBLE: THE DUALITY OF NARRATIVE IN GRAPHIC MEMOIRS OF GROWING UP AND TRAUMA NINA HANEE JANG 72 pages This thesis examines two graphic memoirs: Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons (2002), and David Small’s Stitches (2009) to elucidate the connections between the duality of narrative in graphic memoirs and the subject of childhood trauma. I begin by observing how the inexpressible memories of childhood trauma become expressible through the platform of graphic narrative that allows the authors to illustrate rather than verbalize the memories. Following this analysis, I examine the aspects of embodiment and materiality in the two memoirs demonstrating how the form of graphic narrative enables the authors to effectively bring back their memories and become the witnesses of their own traumas. Finally, I explore the conventions of sequential art explaining how the traumatic memories of the past get fragmented and fictionalized and connecting it to the ethics of life narrative.
KEYWORDS: Lynda Barry, David Small, graphic narrative, comics, trauma, life writing, life narrative, autobiography, childhood, adolescence WHEN INEXPRESSIBLE BECOMES EXPRESSIBLE: THE DUALITY OF NARRATIVE IN GRAPHIC MEMOIRS OF GROWING UP AND TRAUMA NINA HANEE JANG A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of English ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY 2019 © 2019 Nina Hanee Jang WHEN INEXPRESSIBLE BECOMES EXPRESSIBLE: THE DUALITY OF NARRATIVE IN GRAPHIC MEMOIRS OF GROWING UP AND TRAUMA NINA HANEE JANG COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Jan Susina, Chair Cynthia Huff ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to first thank my advisor, Dr. Jan Susina, for his unending inspiration and advice he has given me throughout not only the production of this thesis but also my years in ISU as a graduate student. His genuine enthusiasm in children’s literature will continue to inspire me in the rest of my academic career. Susina’s devotion to his work has always motivated me to become a scholar who retain the wonder and passion of a beginner as one acquires the skills and knowledge of an expert.
I would also like to thank Dr. Cynthia Huff with my genuinely grateful heart. I had the honor of working with Dr. Huff through her last year at ISU and I will never forget what it means to witness other people’s life stories and tell the stories of my own through writing.
Huff shaped me into a life writer that I am today, and I am forever indebted to her for supporting me to summon my own demons of my life and watch them transform into stories that touch other people’s hearts. I will continue to write my life stories and, Dr. Huff, your supportive voice will always resonate in my heart during the moments of my self- doubt. I would also like to thank Dr.
Mary Moran and Dr. They were not in my committee, but I would not have been where I am today without their consistent care and support that helped me throughout my years at ISU as a master’s student. My thesis is much about the subject of family. Thus, I would like to now express my gratitude to my family that I was born into in South Korea.
We have been through many different chapters of our story, and I am happy that our recent chapters have been much about love. Also, thank you to the family I chose here at ISU: Ann Borow, Grace Chipperfield, Heather Sanford, Shane Combs, Thelma Trujillo, and Zeph Webster. Wherever I am, it is certainly amazing and i humbling to feel belonged. Because you made me feel belonged, I get to be who I am: a happy, positive, grateful, inquisitive, and caring person that I strive to be every day and I am forever indebted to you to make me want to be a good person.
And last, but certainly not least, thank you to Gregory Crask who shows up to my life everyday no matter what, and fills my life with laughter and love. ii CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I: REPRESENTATION OF TRAUMA IN DUALITY 5 Silent Cries: The Visual Representation of Pain 5 “The Thing Itself”: Visual Metaphors of the Inexpressible 10 CHAPTER II: BODIES, MATERIALS, AND WITNESSING: THE EMBODIED AND MATERIALIZED SUBJECTS OF TRAUMA 16 Embodied Subjects and Becoming a Witness 16 The Stories of Bodies 18 Memory and Materiality 22 Demons, Materials of Childhood, and Therapeutic Writings of Trauma 25 Art as a Therapy: The Healing Effect of Graphic Memoirs of Trauma 31 CHAPTER III: CIRCLING BACK TO THE PAST: FRAGMENTED TIME, AND THE ETHICS OF LIFE NARRATIVES 34 Frame, Gutters, and Time 34 The Shape of Trauma 36 Narratives of Childhood Trauma and the Fallacy of Memories 47 Fictionality and the Ethics of Life Narrative 52 CONCLUSION: CROSSING BOUNDARIES 61 WORKS CITED 70 iii INTRODUCTION Graphic narrative is a term Hillary Chute uses to refer to “a book-length work composed in the medium of comics” (3). However, the lines between the terms, comics, cartoon, graphic novel, and graphic memoir often overlap and constantly cross boundaries as the field of comics and graphic narrative expanded over the last few decades influencing heavily on popular culture, academic areas and education fields. With extremely talented and artistic authors and illustrators bringing socio-politically complex subjects in book-length works such as Art Spiegelman’s Maus (1980), Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta (1988), Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis (2000), and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home (2006), the genre of graphic narrative has gained a profound critical and scholarly attention over the last few decades by the works of leading scholars in comics studies such as Hillary Chute, Jared Gardner, Nick Sousanis, and Susan E.
There have been many critical works that discuss the topic of comics and graphic narrative in depth and with complexity, but analyses on how the dual narrative of words and images directly connects to and play a role in the life narratives that deal with trauma and memory still require additional scholarly attention. In “When Inexpressible Becomes Expressible: The Duality of Narrative in Graphic Memoirs of Growing up and Trauma,” I examine two graphic memoirs in particular: Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons (2002) and David Small’s Stitches (2009). Both authors trace the history of their trauma(s) they experienced in their childhood and adolescence and showcase how the issues they investigate evolve through the years of growing up and becoming artists as adults. In many ways, these two graphic memoirs share a common narrative pattern that allows them to be considered as nonfiction bildungsromans where a protagonist develops into an independent 1 individual, as well as künstlerroman where a protagonist becomes an artist.
Through vastly different narratives that share core subjects and motifs, both artists suggest artmaking as a solution to progress trauma for the dual narrative can help the artists to narrate their inexpressibly painful memories in an effective/affective way and lead them to the paths of healing. In the following three chapters, I examine how the duality of graphic narrative plays a key role in telling the stories of childhood traumas with the examples of Barry and Small’s graphic memoirs. Chapter 1 explores the ways in which the two authors utilize the duality of graphic narrative to express the inexpressible memories of their childhood trauma. Considering the critical works of scholars on comics, I will examine how Barry and Small utilize two distinctive visual tactics.
First, the two authors utilize “silence” to effectively illustrate the memories of trauma that are too complex and emotionally painful to express only with words. By intentionally omitting words that describe traumatic memories and visually representing the pain and trauma, the authors are able to express the “inexpressible” memories of their childhood and adolescence. Furthermore, Barry and Small also present visual metaphors that also speak for them when they recount the memories of trauma. Considering the concepts of Nick Sousanis in Unflattening (2015), I examine how the two authors are able to visualize the trauma; the “thing itself”; through visual metaphors that closely delivers their recounting of memories instead of speaking about the traumatic events with a single rhetorical vehicle.
Chapter 2 will explain how the duality of narrative enables the authors to become not only the victims of their traumas but also the witnesses of the recounted memories of trauma through the embodiment and materiality that the medium of graphic narrative provides. While the authors tell the stories of their growing up, they present various images of their ever-evolving 2 bodies. Specifically looking at the example of Small’s graphic memoir which distinctly centers around the physical trauma and changes that he experienced, I argue that the narrative uniquely positions the child/adolescent protagonist and the adult narrator in an interactive space where the changing bodies of temporality are embodied along with evolving perspectives of trauma and memory are presented through the medium of graphic narrative. Furthermore, I examine how materiality makes an integral contribution in narrating the stories of one’s traumatic memories of childhood and adolescence.
For this task, I primarily use Barry’s graphic memoir that utilize the materialities of childhood and adolescence ephemera. This analysis will also utilize Perry Nodelman’s concepts in Words About Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books (1988) for Barry’s graphic memoir is framed in the format that can be best analyzed by understanding the functions of children’s picture books. By using the ephemera of childhood and adolescence, Barry effectively/affectively brings back the memories of her growing up while allowing the readers to follow the same task with private reading experience. With embodiment and materiality that the authors benefit from the graphic narrative, artmaking becomes a healing medium for the authors who suffer from childhood traumas.
Chapter 3 examines the subjects of time and the ethics of life writing in Barry and Small’s graphic memoirs. Borrowing Scott McCloud’s notions in Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (1993), I explore the conventions of sequential art such as frame, gutter, and closure, and explain how the traumatic memories of the past get fragmented and fictionalized through this fluid platform that integrates these innovative conventions. Since the format of graphic narrative allows the authors to not only narrate their stories with words but also represent them with images, the narrators can move freely from one memory from another, juxtaposing pieces of memories together and representing the shape of trauma that involves flashbacks and 3 obsessive recounting of memories. Moreover, the fluidity in the form of graphic narrative raises significant questions in the ethics of life narrative.
Utilizing the format of sequential art, Barry and Small break the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction and challenge the concept of one “static” truth. Rather, truth is fluid, flexible, multi-faceted, and evolving as their narratives demonstrate. Finally, in conclusion, I synthesize my arguments from the previous chapters and frame Barry and Small’s graphic memoirs as nonfiction-bildungsroman and künstlerroman that innovatively cross the boundaries of rhetorics, readerships, and genres. 4 CHAPTER I: REPRESENTATION OF TRAUMA IN DUALITY Silent Cries: The Visual Representation of Pain The graphic memoirs of Lynda Barry and David Small seem vastly different on the surface.
Barry utilizes various materialities in her graphic memoir so that Susan E. Kirtley called her artistic approach “scrapbooking the self” (148).