Talk given at Adventures in Textuality Conference, Sunderland, UK (Apr 4, 2013)
Abstract:
As a genre, autobiography poses questions around authenticity that may not plague other non-fiction authors. An autobiographer may use facts, figures and first-person accounts, much like a historian, but those who choose to recount their own histories must also rely on much more ephemeral sources. Memory is hardly the most reliable of human faculties; it is undeniably selective and subjective. When the source material is your own life, how do you adapt it? The writer must reconcile what they remember with what others present recall and then square all of these memories with historical events. This often leads to conflicting reports and incompatible timelines. The writer must decide if it more important to give a factually accurate record of events, or be true to their memory. In recent years, a significant number of memoirs have taken the form of graphic novels. Visual narratives present an opportunity to use different techniques than in traditional prose. Time behaves differently on a comic page than it does on a textual one. This is something that the comic artist can take advantage of when structuring their story. Some creators have used external events to ground their memoir, such as how changes in the political landscape in Iran are key to ‘Persepolis’ by Marjane Satrapi. Other writers have decided to recognize the disparities of memory and make that an inherent part of the text; ‘Fun Home’ by Alison Bechdel reframes certain events multiple times, highlighting the subjectivity of recollection. ‘Fun Home’ also references fictional works in its story construction, yet this does not take away from the legitimacy of Bechdel’s experiences. This paper will compare the different approaches to the adaptation of memory employed by Bechdel and Satrapi in their memoirs, including the distinct ways in which each handles concerns of fidelity, authenticity, and truth.