Framing Mnemohistory: An Exploration of Multimodal Strategies inSelect Graphic War Memoirs.

Abstract

The study explores the subtleties of the interplay between memory and history in select graphic war memoirs. The convoluted relationship between memory and history requires an effective medium of expression suitable for the articulation of emotions, anxieties, and confusion while recollecting a war-torn past. The study uncovers how the gaps and omissions in memory and history fit well within the structure of graphic narrative. Moreover, the numerous exceptional techniques of the medium of comics provide abundant opportunities for memoirists to experiment while presenting the multiple layers of memory and history. The graphic memoirs selected for the study include Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and The Story of a Return, Leila Abdelrazaq’s Baddawi, Art Spiegelman’s The Complete Maus, and G. B. Tran’s Vietnamerica: A Family’s Journey. The investigation delineates the concept of ‘mnemohistory’ as defined by Jan Assmann and applies it in examining how graphic memoirs endeavour to revisit history by engaging memory through a confluence of visual and verbal elements. Theoretical writings by Maurice Halbwachs and Marek Tamm on individual, collective, and cultural memories are employed to further the study. The transgenerational nature of traumatic memories is also dissected executing the concept of ‘postmemory’ by Marianne Hirsch. The episodic and fragmented nature of recollected history is analysed through the lens of critical studies made by the stalwarts of comic studies like Scott McCloud, Thierry Groensteen, and Hillary Chute among others. The thesis attempts to establish the necessity of understanding the intricacies of the medium to decode the meanings spread across the space of panels and gutters of a graphic narrative. The analytical chapters establish how personal memories are interspersed with collective memories etching the aftermath of historical events involving trauma, death, pain, and loss. The crux of the study is the significance of a child as a witness to experiences of war and the role of a second-generation representative in reconstructing history.