The author is inextricably linked to the graphic memoir in numerous, complicated ways. Unlike other written mediums, the writer has the unique ability to organize their thoughts, memories, and sense of self within two separate temporal locations. One level sees the writer as the all-seeing powerful being examining and interpreting memories in retrospect through the narrative voice, and the other allows the author to function as a character within the narrative who may physically interact with the story, albeit both roles are explicitly constrained by the limits of their memory. The graphic memoirs Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and Maus by Art Spiegelman are both autobiographies that work in very similar ways to deal with the lasting impact
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Both Maus and Persepolis are complicated in the way they examine the space that occurs between the personal and political history, primarily by investigating the space where the two intersect. For example, Marjane Satrapi comes to idolize her uncle Anoosh, a figure whose place in history would have been lost, unknown, or erased if not for Satrapi’s act of documenting it for the purpose of adding it to the larger body of historical evidence. By including the impact of her uncle Anoosh on herself, “Anoosh's story becomes part of Satrapi's, and as she becomes a storyteller, she passes it on once again” (Merino 140). Without the archive of Satrapti’s graphic autobiography, her uncle’s story is simply another that is lost to time; it would have been yet another unheard voice about a time of immense political and cultural uncertainty. In the same way, Spiegelman’s Maus provides a single fragment of the grand political narrative. Maus is, at its core, a personal familial history. It is a memoir that belongs to Vladek as much as it does to Art. It offers a glimpse into a point in time that provided experiences that are so horrifying that they are almost completely unimaginable to those who hear stories about them, if not for their participation within and corroboration with the verified historical documentation. And, perhaps more …show more content…
Trauma is what manifests within people after something horrible happens to them. The event often feels somehow unrepresentable; healing from trauma is usually about figuring out how to process and represent that event somehow. Each of the memoirs attempts to strike a balance between the collective experience and the individual experience of a traumatic event. In Maus, the representation of trauma takes numerous forms, and the text ends without a complete solution to the problem. Instead, the composition of the text appears to have been one method of processing residual trauma within itself. For example, Anja's side of the story is very notably absent from the text, and this is a major source of trauma for Art Spiegelman. It is clear that Vladek is practically immobilized by his suffering; he can tell his story, but he is unable to work past it. In this context, while memory is the connection between generations, it is also an immense burden. This inability to emotionally process the traumatic events of the Holocaust may have been what led to Vladek’s decision to destroy Anja’s records of their pain. Anja, too, was unable to move past her trauma. One of the reasons why Art appears to be so viscerally upset when he learns that his father burned his mother’s diaries– an act that he proclaims Vladek is a murderer
Both Maus and Persepolis are complicated in the way they examine the space that occurs between the personal and political history, primarily by investigating the space where the two intersect. For example, Marjane Satrapi comes to idolize her uncle Anoosh, a figure whose place in history would have been lost, unknown, or erased if not for Satrapi’s act of documenting it for the purpose of adding it to the larger body of historical evidence. By including the impact of her uncle Anoosh on herself, “Anoosh's story becomes part of Satrapi's, and as she becomes a storyteller, she passes it on once again” (Merino 140). Without the archive of Satrapti’s graphic autobiography, her uncle’s story is simply another that is lost to time; it would have been yet another unheard voice about a time of immense political and cultural uncertainty. In the same way, Spiegelman’s Maus provides a single fragment of the grand political narrative. Maus is, at its core, a personal familial history. It is a memoir that belongs to Vladek as much as it does to Art. It offers a glimpse into a point in time that provided experiences that are so horrifying that they are almost completely unimaginable to those who hear stories about them, if not for their participation within and corroboration with the verified historical documentation. And, perhaps more …show more content…
Trauma is what manifests within people after something horrible happens to them. The event often feels somehow unrepresentable; healing from trauma is usually about figuring out how to process and represent that event somehow. Each of the memoirs attempts to strike a balance between the collective experience and the individual experience of a traumatic event. In Maus, the representation of trauma takes numerous forms, and the text ends without a complete solution to the problem. Instead, the composition of the text appears to have been one method of processing residual trauma within itself. For example, Anja's side of the story is very notably absent from the text, and this is a major source of trauma for Art Spiegelman. It is clear that Vladek is practically immobilized by his suffering; he can tell his story, but he is unable to work past it. In this context, while memory is the connection between generations, it is also an immense burden. This inability to emotionally process the traumatic events of the Holocaust may have been what led to Vladek’s decision to destroy Anja’s records of their pain. Anja, too, was unable to move past her trauma. One of the reasons why Art appears to be so viscerally upset when he learns that his father burned his mother’s diaries– an act that he proclaims Vladek is a murderer