Miriam Katin's memoir utilizes strong visuals to provoke certain emotions in the reader. The explicit visuals displayed during the scene where the Nazi soldiers invade the winemakers home and rape the women that were seeking refuge is disturbing and provokes a feeling of uneasiness. Miriam also changes the style of the visuals according to the emotions present in the scene. During a scene in which fear and pain is present the images are darker, lines are less defined and certain images are blown out of proportion.
(Katin, 2006)
Miriam Katin also utilizes different themes to make the reader comprehend the story better. Color images are used to display present day scenes. The contrast between the black and white images versus the color images conveys a message that the scenes of the past were dark times in her life and the color scenes represent a more favorable period in her life. Miriam also uses expressions to make the reader aware of the emotional state the character is in and provides context to the dialogue which only printed text would be unable to achieve.
(Katin, 2006)
https://bookriot.com/2014/10/01/my-kryptonite-the-thing-about-graphic-memoirs/
This link describes different techniques some athours have used when writing their graphic memoirs and how they enhance the reader's experience.
Hi Oscar,
ReplyDeleteWhat really sticks with me as the reader during this book was the images of the characters faces. Much like to the above rape scene you were talking about how Miriam blurred out the detail, I found some of the faces of the characters to be not well defined. Do you think that this could be about the references to a child's memory of others? How we can remember people, but perhaps not their faces?
Below is an article that talks about parents and children reminiscing about negative events and how that affects with their coping.
Robyn Fivush, Lisa Berlin, Jessica McDermott Sales, Jean Mennuti-Washburn & Jude Cassidy (2010) Functions of parent-child reminiscing about emotionally negative events, Memory, 11:2, 179-192, DOI: 10.1080/741938209