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Nienke de Haan
S1140329
Dr. I. Visser
19 March 2008
Masterscriptie opleiding Engelse Taal- en Cultuur
Faculteit der Letteren
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: The Magic of Words and Images 3 Strawson’s theories and critical responses 10 Chapter One: Different Views on the Narrative Identity Thesis 13 Form-finding, story-telling and revision 17 Three critical responses 20 Chapter Two : Visual and Verbal Self-Representation in Blankets 27
Story summary 28
Form-finding: panels 29 Gutters and closure 33
Time and narrative 36
Drawing style and inner reality 40 Memory and autobiography 44 Voices and roles: the self 46 Chapter Three: Discussion of Findings 50
Form-finding 51
Story-telling 53
Revision 54
Diachronicity 56
Chapter Four: Conclusion 59
Appendix 62
INTRODUCTION
The Magic of Words and Images
We are all virtuoso novelists. . . . We try to make all of our material cohere into a single good story. And that story is our autobiography. The chief fictional character of that autobiography is one’s self. (Daniel Dennett 1029)
When I was a child, my grandmother’s attic was my favourite place. She kept her children’s old toys and games there, as well as a dusty record player, a table football set and an old home trainer. One day, I discovered a hidden treasure in that attic: piles and piles of comic books, stacked up in a closet. There were old series of Donald Duck, Astérix, The Adventures of Tintin, Mad and Suske & Wiske. I dragged all the comics to my spare room and started reading. This is when I first discovered the magic of words and images and once I started reading, I could not stop. More than in “normal” books, I could lose myself in those comics. It was, as James Bettley calls it, one of my first “visual aesthetic experiences” (122). Even though many people still think that comics, or graphic novels for that matter, is “just for kids,” part of the appeal of comics is that its unique interdependence of words and images opens up a whole new world. It is a world of timelessness, in which the reader can expect anything from the absurd and the funny to the realistic or even the horrific. The fact that in comic books much is shown through the combination of pictures and words, but much more is left to the imagination, still intrigues me.
multidimensional and complex as any other art form. Moreover, because of the recent creative explosion in the field of comics, this phenomenon is gradually earning more serious critical and academic attention, and since the 1980s, comics scholarship has been flourishing (Taylor, Martin and Houp). According to Roger Sabin, “… comics are a language: they combine to constitute a weave of writing and art which has its own syntax, grammar and conventions, and which can communicate ideas in a totally unique fashion” (8). One of the leading theorists in the field, and the most ardent advocate of this literary art form, is Scott McCloud. His point of view is that even although professionals and critics might not always agree on the purposes and goals of comics in general, the focus of the discussion should be on the recognition that the genre of comics is as worthy of study as art or literature (Reinventing 26).
The terms “comics,” “graphic novel” and “graphic narrative” are not completely interchangeable. Firstly, graphic narrative encompasses a range of types of narrative work in comics; it is a general term for comic books, graphic novels, manga, bandes dessinées, ... [and] sequential art” (Rabkin 2008). Cave paintings, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and even the Bayeux Tapestry, for instance, are early examples of graphic narrative (Understanding 10-15). Comics, then, are a form of graphic narrative. Scott McCloud defines the art form as “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer” (Understanding 9). The first modern comics appeared around the turn of the twentieth century in the United States (Understanding 18). The term “comics” refers to the art form, to the genre itself, and not to a specific object, as “comic book” or “comic strip” do, as McCloud emphasizes (Understanding 4). The term “graphic novel” was coined by Will Eisner in the late 1970s1 in an attempt to make a clearer distinction between the early humorous strips and later, more “artier,” serious, and divergent forms of the genre (Saraceni 4). Eisner later explained to TIME.comix that
1 Eisner was the first to call his work A Contract with God (1978) a “graphic novel.” It was actually the
[A Contract with God] was intended as a departure from the standard, what we call “comic book format.” ... I sat down and tried to do a book that would physically look like a “legitimate” book and at the same time write about a subject matter that would never have been addressed in comic form. (qtd. in Arnold 2003)
Following Eisner, comics artists started to create works that not only deserved to be called “novel” in terms of their shape and size, but also in terms of subject matter. According to James Bettley, the graphic novel is characterized by the fact that it is “a one-shot publication in book form with a continuous comic narrative” and that it is aimed at an adult readership (122). McCloud describes the difference in perception between comics and graphic novels as follows:
comics has long been perceived as a linear, plot-driven form, lacking [the] ability to handle layers of meaning – subtext – within a story. But various [recent graphic novels] have yielded new strategies uniquely suited to comics, which can help a story’s double life emerge visually. (Reinventing 31)
Many comic aficionados prefer the term “graphic novel” or “graphic narrative” to “comics,” because they feel that the latter is dismissive and does not do any justice to the art form (Reinventing 80). However, not every comic is a graphic novel, and the term “graphic narrative” encompasses more than just comics. In this dissertation, when I refer to the genre as a whole, then, I will be using the term “comics”; when I discuss sequential art in longer form, I will be using “graphic novel”; and when I explore several technical narrative aspects, such as panels and closure, I will be using “graphic narrative.”
explains that the “verbal-visual conjunctions” that occur in graphic narrative reveal the visuality and thus the materiality of words and the discursivity and narrativity of images (1213).In addition, as McCloud argues, the deliberate sequence of the images is of vital importance, since any two or more individual images do not automatically mean that we are dealing with graphic art (Understanding 7). The sequentiality of the images gives them a special meaning: it can suggest motion, a (linear) change, a narrative, or progression in time – a process that words alone achieve in a completely different manner. What is most distinctive about graphic narrative, is that “[its] import and meaning ... is in how images interact with text, and in how they interact with other images on the pages, moving time forward spatially” (Chute & DeKoven 780).In other words, on a page of a comic book, time is represented as space, and the separate panels can essentially be seen as “boxes of time” (Chute & DeKoven 769).
The following example, taken from McCloud’s Understanding Comics, illustrates what Chute & DeKoven mean by “boxes of time” and what happens in between those boxes:
enables the reader to fill up what has happened in between them by utilizing his or her imagination. According to Chute & DeKoven, “[g]raphic narrative, through its most basic composition in frames and gutters ... calls a reader’s attention visually and spatially to the act, process and duration of interpretation” (767). The process of interpreting sequential images is called “closure,” where the reader observes the parts (two or more seemingly separate images) but perceives the whole (the action that is represented, in this case the action of tying shoelaces). Comics depend on closure for their impact or “magic” to work.McCloud stresses the importance of this process: “… closure allows us to connect [seemingly unconnected] moments and mentally construct a continuous, unified reality” (Understanding 67).
Halfway through the 1980s, the first volume of Art Spiegelman’s Maus, a groundbreaking graphic novel on the Holocaust, appeared, and a new phenomenon made its way on the literary field: the autobiographical graphic novel. Eisner’s A Contract with God, the first official graphic novel, was semi-autobiographical, and Spiegelman acknowledges that Eisner’s work influenced him tremendously (Raney 2006). Maus’ form was not exceptional, neither was its content; it was the combination of both that made it unique. Maus was considered daring and original because of Spiegelman’s revolutionary choice to use animals as main characters to represent nationality or race: the Jews are mice, the Germans are cats, the Poles are pigs, and so on. After the 1986 publication of Maus I: My Father Bleeds History, many sceptics and critics of the graphic novel had to reconsider their views and renounce the prejudices they had against this art form, although some were of the opinion that, in the case of Maus, the innovative form damaged the content.2 Nevertheless, Spiegelman was the first to tell the story of a Holocaust survivor in the form of a graphic novel and Maus sold very well. Moreover, Maus sparked a revolution in the field of comic art; the autobiographical graphic novel became a popular means for graphic artists to convey their highly personal experiences (Sabin 182-88).
2 The Guardian, for example, thought that “the stereotyping of nationalities was essentially fascistic”
The autobiographical graphic novel, also known as “memoir comic,”3 is a unique subgenre of the graphic novel and from the 1980s and 1990s onwards, it has become extremely popular. In the course of the 1980s and 1990s, underground comics started to appear, setting themselves immediately apart from the mainstream comics by means of different subject matter, varying from horror and science fiction to politics and satire (Sabin 177), as well as more immediate and confrontational writing and drawing styles and a different scope. As opposed to the mainstream comics about superheroes and the like, mostly created from a commercial point of view, these alternative comics represented new voices and reached a new, more divergent readership. It is quite difficult to make generalizations about alternative comics, but Roger Sabin attempts to categorize them on the basis of genre. He states that there is a clear distinction between fiction and non-fiction, and that the latter can be further divided into political documentary, biography and the focal point of this dissertation, autobiography (209).
Initially, the form of the autobiographical graphic novel was closely related to the humorous comics: “[the] stories tended to be told in an amusing way: the roots of the genre can be traced to underground ‘confessionals’” (Sabin 209). In the course of the 1980s and ‘90s, however, the topics of the most popular autobiographical graphic novel expanded and ranged from small observations about everyday life (Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor), to narratives about a difficult childhood (Chester Brown’s Yummy Fur), to even the self-obsessed confessions of a sex maniac, as in Joe Matt’s Peepshow (Sabin 210-11). These tell-all graphic novels caused quite a stir among their readership: “[People] either loved them for being revealing, or reviled them for being navel-gazing and self-obsessed” (Sabin 209). As divergent as the topics of these autobiographical graphic novels were, the distinct styles of drawing and writing were equally wide-ranging. There were at least as many styles as there were graphic artists: you had the hyper-realistic, the understated, the abstract, the unpolished and so on (Sabin 210). What the autobiographical graphic novels all had in common, though, was that they were raw and confrontational, parallel to new emerging
3 See also Martha Cornog and Steve Raiteri’s article “Graphic Novels” for an overview of important
movements in underground music that reflected the same Zeitgeist, such as punk, grunge and house music. Scott McCloud comments that “[i]n the late-80s and early-90s, cartoonists embraced a decidedly unglamorous confessional style of autobiography, as if to consciously contradict the mainstream’s popular power fantasies in every respect” (Reinventing 40).
Autobiographical graphic novels, then, are stories about the lives of the writers of graphic novels, represented in the form of images and words. They can be confessional, self-deprecating, emotionally honest, politically charged, or sexually frank (Reinventing 102, 112). Ultimately, the common denominator in autobiographical graphic novels is the graphic artist’s “self” in all its manifestations. The novels deal with the life stories and experiences of the graphic novelists - with their memories, struggles, confessions or the trivialities of everyday life. The graphic novelists attempt, through self-reflection, to form an idea of their personality and to visualize that idea by means of writing and drawing (Musarra-Schroeder 41). They can draw inspiration from their own lives; the medium of the graphic novel enables them to use both images and words and weave them together into a unique “carpet of the self.”
In this dissertation I will discuss the visual and verbal interface in the manner of self-representation in one autobiographical graphic novel, namely Craig Thompson’s Blankets (2003). The starting point of my discussion is “Against Narrativity” (2004), an essay by the British literary critic and philosopher Galen Strawson on narrativity and autobiography, and three critical responses to Strawson’s proposed theories by James L. Battersby, James Phelan and Paul John Eakin. These critical responses are necessary, because even though Strawson has an interesting, new view on narrativity, or rather, against narrativity, his overall argument is too one-sided and contradictory, in my view. Strawson’s views and the corrections and complementary notions of his respondents provide the theoretical approach of this dissertation to explore theself that this graphic novel creates and to examine how that self is presented in the interplay between words and images. Strawson’s theories and critical responses
Strawson has written numerous books and articles on the workings of the human mind, focusing on free will, causation, and self-representation (The Believer 2003). In “Against Narrativity,” Strawson argues against the popular narrative identity thesis, which insists that “our identity is a function of the story that we construct about ourselves” (Battersby 27).4 This notion is widely discussed in the field of narrative studies. Strawson discusses autobiographical writing in relation to self-representation and how autobiographical narrative is affected by the image of the self. He begins his argument against the narrative identity thesis by distinguishing between Diachronic self-experience, which can be explained as seeing the self as continuous over time, and Episodic self-experience, which is the opposite: seeing the self as discontinuous over time. Diachronics are what Strawson terms “Narrative”: they see their lives in terms of stories, with one coordinating “master story.” Episodics, on the other hand, are “non-Narrative”: they do not see their lives as a coherent collection of stories. To them, life is simply a repository of unconnected moments or episodes. Strawson himself is an adamant Episodic. He defends the Episodic mode of self-representation by stressing that, contrary to what Diachronics
might think, narrative unity is not necessarily a prerequisite for a fulfilling life. The premise of Strawson’s theory is that, since there are, indeed, people like him with an Episodic outlook on life, the narrative identity thesis must be false.
Strawson’s fiercest critic is James Battersby. The argument in his essay “Narrativity, Self, and Self-Representation” is logical and fully substantiated, and he clarifies and challenges Strawson on many points. His main critique on “Against Narrativity” is that Strawson passes up the chance to give good examples of non-Narrative ways of self-representation. Battersby states that Strawson’s argument would have been stronger if he had elaborated on the Episodic point of view. He wonders if Strawson is even able to give an account of his life, since it would be virtually impossible without making it a narrative. James Phelan, on the other hand, largely concurs with Strawson’s anti-Narrative views, although he disagrees with Strawson’s tendency to favour the Episodic mode of self-representation. He believes that the Diachronic and the Episodic approach to self-understanding are equally valid. John Paul Eakin, lastly, feels that Strawson does not succeed in proving that being Narrative is exclusively reserved for Diachronics; Episodics can and do have interest in narratives as well. He finds Strawson’s opposition of Diachronics and Episodics too artificial. According to Eakin, the two are not radically opposed, but they exist along a spectrum.
analysis of the “graphic self.” At some points, however, the model is insufficient and Battersby cum suis provide corrective views. My claim, then, is that the entire debate provides an interesting way forward in the analysis of self in autobiographical graphic novels.
Chapter One provides the theoretical foundation of my dissertation: it explores various aspects of the narrative identity thesis and Strawson´s reasons for rejecting these. Chapter One extensively deals with “Against Narrativity,” because the essay sheds a new and challenging light on self-representation. I will use Strawson in extenso in Chapters Two and Three, so I need to present the full complexity of the debate. The second section of Chapter One deals with some critical responses to Strawson’s views. These critical notes are crucial, because where Strawson’s approach falls short, they provide a complement to, or a modification of, the model.
CHAPTER ONE
Different Views on the Narrative Identity Thesis
Central to this dissertation is the genre of autobiography, which can be defined as: “[a] retrospective story in prose that a real person tells of his own existence, emphasizing his individual life and the history of his personality” (qtd. in Burgos 13). Autobiography is inextricably bound up with the self; the stories we tell confirm who we are, how we think about ourselves and the world, and how we relate to others.Autobiographers can have different motivations for narrating their lives: they want to make sense of it, make it coherent and understandable or simply tell an interesting story. Paul John Eakin goes so far as to state that we need autobiography to structure their lives: “Autobiography is not merely something we read in a book; rather, [it is] a discourse of identity, delivered bit by bit in the stories we tell about ourselves day in and day out”(“Reading” 122).
summary of Strawson, since he is very clear in pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of Strawson’s claims.
“Against Narrativity” is primarily an argument against the narrative identity thesis. Strawson even goes so far as to call it “a fallacy of our age.”1 His aim, in the words of James Battersby, is to “reconfigure the terms and the conditions of the discussion of the relations obtaining between the self and its representation” (27). Strawson explains why he argues against the popular narrative identity thesis by first distinguishing between the descriptive “psychological Narrativity thesis” and the normative “ethical Narrativity thesis,” describing the former as: “… human beings typically see or live or experience their lives as a narrative or story of some sort, or at least as a collection of stories” (428).2 He continues that “[t]he psychological Narrativity thesis is a straightforwardly empirical, descriptive thesis about the way ordinary human beings actually experience their lives. This is how we are, it says, this is our nature” (428). The psychological Narrativity thesis is often combined with a normative thesis, which Strawson terms the ethical Narrativity thesis. This states that “experiencing or conceiving one’s life as a narrative is a good thing; a richly Narrative outlook is essential to a well-lived life, to true or full personhood” (428). Strawson is of the opinion that both theses are false, and that therefore the narrative identity thesis is also false.
To illustrate his point, Strawson next distinguishes between people who experience themselves as the “same human being” over time, and those who rather see themselves as a succession of “different selves.” This distinction is effectively explained by one of James Battersby’s examples: if we look through an old photo album and are confronted with some old pictures of ourselves, we could be “suddenly struck by one’s sense of the disparity between the person depicted and the person, the self, one is today, very now” (41). Some people feel that they are still the same self, only changed, older, or wiser, while others believe that the person in the
1 The title of one of Strawson’s earlier versions of “Against Narrativity,” published in the Times
Literary Supplement, 15 October 2004.
2 Throughout “Against Narrativity,” Strawson distinguishes between upper-case Narrative and
pictures is an entirely different self from who or what they are now. Strawson continues to argue that these two types of self-experience correspond to two opposite “styles of temporal being” (430): the Diachronic and the Episodic. The basic form of Diachronic self-experience is that
one naturally figures oneself, considered as a self, as something that was there in the (further) past and will be there in the (further) future – something that has relatively long-term diachronic continuity, something that persists over a long stretch of time, perhaps for life. I take it that many people are naturally Diachronic, and that many who are Diachronic are also Narrative in their outlook on life. (“Against” 430)
The basic form of Episodic self-experience, by contrast, is that
one does not figure oneself, considered as a self, as something that was there in the (further) past and will be there in the (further) future. One has little or no sense that the self that one is, was there in the (further) past and will be there in the future, although one is perfectly well aware that one has long-term continuity considered as a whole human being. Episodics are likely to have no particular tendency to see their life in Narrative terms. (430)
being Episodic or vice versa, depending on phase in life, state of health, and so on. According to Strawson, these attitudes are opposed, but they are not binary: they exist along a spectrum (see Phelan 207). Unfortunately, Strawson pays little attention to this in “Against Narrativity.” He simply states that the Diachronic and Episodic modes of self-representation are opposed, without going into further detail, and he leaves it to others to interpret or nuance. A reason for this could be that, had he admitted that Diachronics and Episodics do exist along a spectrum, and that there are, indeed, people with both Diachronic and Episodic traits, he would undermine his entire argument, since there would be no point in even distinguishing both. Not surprisingly, Battersby, Phelan, and Eakin are quick to point out this tenuousness of Strawson’s argument.
Strawson is a self-proclaimed Episodic who does not particularly see his life in Narrative terms. He sees himself (his “now-self”) at the moment when he is busy writing “Against Narrativity” as a different self than he was in the past, or will be in the future:
… it seems clear to me, when I am experiencing or apprehending myself as a self, that the remoter past or future in question is not my past or future, although it is certainly the past or future of G[alen] S[trawson] the human being … I have no significant sense that I – the I now considering this question – was there in the further past. (433)
Clearly, this is very different from the way Diachronics see themselves and talk about themselves. To distinguish between Diachronics’ and Episodics’ “self-talk,” Strawson marks the Episodic personal references with an asterisk, so that Episodic, or non-Narrative reference to the self becomes I*, me*, mine*, self*, and so on, or, as James Battersby puts it: “the use of these terms with an asterisk occurs whenever Strawson needs to represent the ‘now experience’ of the self as an ‘inner mental presence’” (29). So Strawson uses “I*” when he apprehends himself as a self (his inner subject) and “I” when he talks about the human being that he is, considered as a whole. For clarity’s sake, Battersby summarizes the following two “lines of affiliation or entailment” that Strawson, up to this point, has set up:
Diachronic self-experience Episodic self-experience Same human being Different selves
Narrative self-representation Non-narrative self-representation I, me, mine, self, etc. I*, me*, mine*, self*, etc. (29-30)
Strawson continues by going deeply into the subject of Narrativity: what is essential to it, and how it relates to Diachronicity and Episodicity. First, he establishes what being Narrative means. Strawson states that many thinkers in the field of narrative studies (Sartre, Sacks, Bruner and others) have a “Diachronic conception of the Narrative mode of self-representation” (Battersby 34). Many of them believe that human life is narrative in nature, although of them believe that the only way of making sense of one’s life is to tell a story. In accordance with the narrative identity thesis, they affirm that in order for a life to be a narrative in the required sense it must be lived Narratively, meaning that “the person whose life it is must see or feel it as a narrative, construe it as a narrative, live it as a narrative” (Strawson 440).
Form-finding, story-telling and revision
construction – a unifying or form-finding construction – on the events of one’s life, or parts of one’s life” (440). A truly Narrative person, as Strawson argues, has two main tendencies: he or she is “finding” and “story-telling.” To begin with, form-finding means that “[o]ne must have some sort of relatively large-scale coherence-seeking, unity-coherence-seeking, pattern-coherence-seeking, or most generally [F] form-finding tendency when it comes to one’s apprehension of one’s life, or relatively large-scale parts of one’s life” (440-41). If [D] stands for Diachronicity and if [F] is to mean a form-finding tendency in a person, Strawson goes on to explain that [D] and [F] are independent of each other, since Diachronics can be [+D –F] (Narrative, but not form-finding) and also [+D +F] (both Narrative and form-finding), while Episodics can be [–D +F] (non-Narrative, but with a form-finding tendency) and also [–D –F] (non-Narrative and non-form-finding). One of the most important reasons, according to Strawson, why the psychological Narrativity thesis is false, is that “one can be Diachronic while being very unreflective about oneself. One can be inclined to think, of any event in one’s past of which one is reminded, that it happened to oneself*, without positively grasping one’s life as a unity in any further – e.g. specifically narrative – sense” (442).
The second essential feature of Narrativity is the [S] story-telling tendency, which means “one must be disposed to apprehend or think of oneself and one’s life as fitting the form of some recognized narrative genre” (442). Story-telling entails form-finding, insofar that it is also a mode to find coherency among the chaotic events of one’s life. Story-telling is what many people engage in every day; if one is to give an account of what happened, for example, in the course of one day, one is likely to say: “First I did this, then I did that, and next I did that.”
memory is not nearly as reliable as we think it is. Over the course of time, we simply forget certain parts, or we slightly adapt, abridge, or edit our stories for the sake of self-affirmation, for instance. In the end, Strawson states that revision is not necessarily a part of being Narrative, since, essentially, “Narrativity involves nothing more than form-finding story-telling” (445). Strawson leaves revision out, because when engaging in form-finding and story-telling, revision always poses a threat to the truthfulness of an account. After all, revision distorts or falsifies an account, even though it mostly happens unconsciously.
In short, Strawson finds that a genuinely Narrative person has a [+F +S] view of his or her life; these two tendencies are sufficient for Narrativity. Others contend that Narrativity involves all four tendencies: [+D +F +S +R]. By contrast, Strawson takes himself to be [–D –F –S –R]: non-Diachronic, non-form-finding, non-story-telling and non-revising. As he stresses, many Diachronics would not see him as a person. He quotes Schechtman, who states that “to have an ‘identity’ as a person is ‘to have a narrative self-conception’” (447). This, again, is confirmation of the psychological and ethical Narrativity theses. Many scholars and theorists still insist that life is a narrative and that a narrative life is the norm; one more reason for Strawson to disagree with them, because what holds for them, does not hold for everybody.
unity” one can also lead a good, fulfilling life. With the existence of Episodics, ipso facto, it must follow that the psychological, as well as the ethical Narrativity thesis is false. In one of his final statements, Strawson again expresses his dissatisfaction over the favoured position of Narrativity: “Diachronicity is not a necessary condition of a properly moral existence, nor of a proper sense of responsibility. … Narrativity … is in the sphere of ethics more of an affliction or a bad habit than a prerequisite of a good life” (450).
Three critical responses
What I find useful about Strawson’s essay is the idea that there are, indeed, two modes of self-experience, although I disagree with Strawson that these two are radically opposed. Instead, they seem to exist along a spectrum,as Eakin points out. Applying Strawson’s notions of Diachronicity and Episodicity on the self represented in Blankets will allow me to explore whether it is continuous or fractioned over time. I will not, however, join in the discussion which one of the two modes of self-experience is more valid. I do not agree with Strawson on all of his bold claims; I do not think that Narrativity is a bad habit, for instance; neither do I believe in a strict separation between Diachronics and Episodics. I understand that Strawson, as founder of the Diachronic/Episodic divide and advocate of the Episodic mode of self-representation, has to make a strong case, but he fails to recognize that many people are, for instance, moderately Diachronic with a few Episodic tendencies or any other variation. I do think that he is too rigid in dismissing Narrativity altogether. My summary of the three critical responses to “Against Narrativity” reveals further details about the strengths and weaknesses of Strawson’s theories, and further clarifies my position in the debate.
narrative? He continues: “It is difficult to imagine how even a non-Narrative account of successive now selves would be possible” (31). To enforce his argument, Battersby quotes Strawson, who states that “the Episodic has no tendency to see [his or her] life in Narrative terms,” but then again, everybody’s life consists of episodes (meaning “any delimited period of time”) and every episode “has inherently a narrative structure or, more exactly, could have such a structure imposed upon it” (31). So it would be virtually impossible, according to Battersby, to give an account of one’s life without making it a narrative. Battersby continues by saying that if Strawson (or any other true Episodic) were to write an autobiography, it would come across as strange and alienating to the reader, because it would look something like this: “this happened to me, but not to me*, and then this happened to me, but not to me*” (33), etc. Thus, it would be a biography, rather than an autobiography, “since the I* of the writer is not continuous with the I of the experiencer” (33).
What Battersby finds most questionable and disappointing, however, is the fact that after Strawson has set up the Diachronic/Episodic divide, has explained how Diachronicity is linked to Narrativity, and has given countless examples of Narrative ways of self-representation, he “hesitates to do what he could to illuminate at least some of the many possible non-Narrative ‘forms’ that would bolster his case and give his argument additional weight and substance” (40). Battersby lists some of the many possibilities of construing or representing oneself non-Narratively:
Many see themselves, not in terms of story or plot, but in terms of character, in terms of roles, … in terms of some attitude, ideology or philosophical stance. … Many others focus on themselves as an assortment or collection of traits, beliefs, symptoms, predilections, and so on. (39)
space to elucidating what he is not, a Diachronic/Narrative type, and almost no time and space to delineating what he is, an Episodic/non-Narrative type” (40).
In the end, Battersby agrees with Strawson that the prevailing Narrative point of view is too limiting and gratuitous and he applauds the fact that Strawson tries to make people aware of that, but his major problem with “Against Narrativity” is that it is too black-and-white, too either/or. I agree with Battersby here, because Strawson could have put more emphasis on the fact that the Diachronic and Episodic attitudes exist along a spectrum, and that they need not be radically opposed, since Strawson does admit (albeit somewhat reluctantly) that one can be a little bit of both. Battersby firmly believes that there is no point in being on either side of the Diachronic/ Episodic divide, because we can be both or neither at the same time. It is vital in the field of narrativity and autobiography that we think about the self and how we present or construct it; we should, however, bear in mind that “there are … many truths we can tell … about selves … but there is no way to get at the whole truth in any way of telling” (43). He concludes his essay with:
… we certainly should give up trying to decide whether we are fundamentally Diachronic or Episodic, or some combination of the two, or alternately one and then the other, and instead luxuriate in the unassailable knowledge that there are many roads leading to Self-representation and many vehicles available for transportation, each one capable of getting us there; just don’t expect them all to take us to the same place. (43)
views and warns against what he terms “narrative imperialism”: “the impulse by students of narrative to claim more and more territory, more and more power for our object of study and our ways of studying it” (206). This is not a positive development, because “it can stretch the concept of narrative to the point that we lose sight of what is distinctive about it” (206). He then wonders whether he himself is as Episodic as Strawson is and comes to the conclusion that he is somewhat of a Multiple; he regards his life not as “one damn thing after another,” but rather as “this damn story and that damn story and that other damn story,” without the stories coalescing into a single “Master Damn Story” (209). The fact that Phelan considers himself a Multiple, implies that the Diachronic/Episodic set up is not as strict as Strawson claims. Phelan argues for the possibility that people can be both Diachronic and Episodic, whereas Strawson is rather reticent about hybridity.
However, Phelan finds fault with Strawson’s tendency to favour the Episodic mode of self-representation. Where Strawson not only claims that both the psychological and the ethical Narrativity theses are false – moreover, completely wrong, but also that, in a way, Episodics are superior to Diachronics, Phelan points out that “[both] modes [are] two valid approaches to self-understanding, [so] the argument that either approach leads to a superior ethical position itself becomes ethically suspect” (208). Phelan is right in refuting Strawson’s claim that Episodics are superior to Diachronics. After Strawson has fiercely argued against the ethical Narrativity thesis, he cannot venture to make ethical remarks about either Diachronics or Episodics, and express his strong preference for the Episodic mode of self-representation.
experience” (184). He finds that Strawson does not succeed in proving that being Narrative is exclusively reserved for Diachronics; Episodics can and do have interest in narratives as well. The distinction between Diachronics and Episodics is too artificial, he finds, and assigning Narrativity only to Diachronics does not add up. To illustrate his point, he adds that “from a neurobiological perspective we are all Episodics in the sense that past consciousness is irrecoverable” (183). That is to say, if you ask even the most adamant Diachronics about “the extent to which they can call up the past, about whether they can actually re-inhabit earlier periods of their lives, pressing them as to whether they can in the present re-experience earlier states of consciousness”(183), they would probably admit to being somewhat of an Episodic too, because no-one can return to the past and re-inhabit past consciousness to the fullest.
In conclusion, although Strawson’s attempt to put a stop to “narrative imperialism” is commendable, Eakin is of the opinion that “… [he] grossly undervalues the power of narrative not only as a form of self-representation but as an instrument of self-understanding” (184). Furthermore, according to Eakin, “[i]t’s all very well to attack ‘narrativity,’ but it’s much harder to escape it in self-presentation. We’re a part of a narrative identity system, whether we like it or not” (186). Eakin, like Battersby and Phelan, points out that Strawson’s opposition of Diachronics on one end of the spectrum and Episodics on the other is too black-and-white. Eakin’s main point, that Narrativity is essential and inevitable when it comes to self-representation, is also in concert with Battersby and Phelan.
In my opinion, Battersby exposes Strawson’s flaws most elaborately and eloquently. I agree with him that Strawson should have gone into particulars concerning the ways in which one can represent oneself non-Narratively. Indeed, it seems logical to think of oneself in terms of a collection - or rather, collage – of (sometimes opposite) character traits, opinions and convictions, and so on. I understand that Strawson does not see himself as continuous over time, and I, too, believe that one can radically change in the course of one’s life (and with that, the image that one has of oneself). Strawson’s case would have been stronger, however, if he, as Battersby suggests, had particularized what it is to be Episodic.
I can also subscribe to Phelan’s “Multiple” line of thinking: I do believe that there is no such thing as one definitive life story, but rather a collection of short stories, or episodes. This is where Battersby’s case and Phelan’s arguments concur, since Battersby, too, states that every episode of one’s life “has inherently a narrative structure or, more exactly, could have such a structure imposed upon it” (31). Like Battersby, Phelan finds Strawson’s argument over-simplified when it comes to the radical opposition of Diachronics and Episodics.
Eakin’s remark that Episodics can and do have interest in narratives, or, despite being Episodic, can be relatively Narrative, will prove to be of great value in the next two chapters. I fully agree with Eakin that Strawson is too rigorous in excluding Episodics from Narrativity. Still, Strawson’s basic set-up of the Diachronic/Episodic divide is the starting point of my analysis of the self in Blankets, and, with the added ideas and corrections of Battersby, Phelan and Eakin, Strawson’s innovative theory provides a fresh approach to the study of autobiographical graphic narrative.
CHAPTER TWO
Visual and Verbal Self-Representation in Blankets
Craig Thompson’s autobiographical graphic novel Blankets (2003) is a highly personal and intimate coming-of-age story with an essential blend of pictures and words. In 582 visually challenging pages, Thompson tells the story of his childhood, experiencing his first love, the loss of his faith and the struggles of growing up in an orthodox Christian, almost fundamentalist, environment. Blankets is about that difficult period in life, that twilight-zone between high school and university, in which parents, teachers and hormones are the biggest enemies. As a Bildungsroman, Blankets deals with physical, emotional and intellectual growth, and the painful process of trying to break free from parental influence and their strict religious beliefs. Craig1 needs protection against the isolation, anxiety, doubts, and fears; he needs a security blanket, and that is what the title refers to. The eponymous blankets provide him with a sense of warmth, security and comfort. The literal blankets are the ones he had to share with his brother when they were little, and the quilt his first girlfriend made for him out of different pieces of fabric that reminded him of her. The third blanket is metaphorical; it is the blanket of snow that is present throughout almost the entire novel. The snow covers everything that is plain and ugly, and it renders the world pure, unspoiled and clean. Wisconsin winters can be harsh and painful, but as Raina’s father says, there is a world of beauty behind the discomfort and isolation of the snow and the cold (176).
In this chapter I will analyze the manner of self-representation in Blankets on the basis of my interpretive framework, based on Strawson’s and his critics’ theories, and Scott McCloud’s theoretical analysis of graphic narrative. First, I explore the narrative strategies, both visual and verbal, in Blankets. Thus, by discussing panels, closure, time and narrative, inner reality, memory and autobiography, and voices and roles on the basis of examples from the text, I can examine the self in this novel.
1 When I refer to Thompson, I mean the graphic novelist. When I refer to Craig, I mean the boy in the
Since Strawson claims that form-finding and story-telling are sufficient for Narrativity, I will incorporate these aspects into my argument, because the panels, closure, drawing style and narrative time determine Blankets’ form and story. In Chapter Three, then, I discuss the results of this narrative analysis, and connect them with the four properties of Narrativity, including revision and Diachronicity, to form a clear picture of the self represented in the novel.
Story summary
Blankets is set in a small town in the snowy Midwest, where communities are close-knit and the church has much influence. As a boy, Craig has fantasies about escaping; he feels that “life was the most horrible world anyone could ever live in, and that there had to be something better” (38). Being bullied at school, frightened at Sunday school, and molested by the babysitter, Craig’s only way out of the cruel world are his drawings and his escapist fantasies. He feels best when he is drawing or playing in the snow with his little brother Phil. As Craig grows up, however, his parents, his teachers and the church teach him that drawing is a sinful waste of time, and at one point Craig decides to give up drawing and devote all his time to studying the Bible. He is even pressured to pursue a career in the ministry. Like many teenagers he feels alienated from his environment and, although he tries to find a connection, he never quite seems to fit in.
realization that seasons and first loves come and go, that after a long winter, thaw eventually sets in, and that everything is temporary, Craig decides that it is time to move on. He leaves behind him the claustrophobic atmosphere of small-town Wisconsin, and upon walking in the fresh snow once again, he realizes “how satisfying it is to leave a mark on a blank surface. To make a map of my movement – no matter how temporary” (581-82).
Form-finding: panels
Graphic conventions particularly serve the needs of the form-finding variety of Narrativity. First, I will analyze the panels in Blankets, because they provide the structure for the narrative. The panels and their different shapes, sizes and styles determine the form of a graphic novel, and panels are an important part of the vocabulary of comics. McCloud argues that the panel itself is overlooked as comics’ most important icon: “These icons we call panels or ‘frames’ have no fixed or absolute meaning, like the icons of language, science and communication, nor is their meaning as fluid and malleable as the sorts of icons we call pictures” (99).2 Panels simply act as a general indicator that time and space is being divided. In Blankets, form-finding is a major concern, because the form of the narrative, and the division thereof in panels, determines how we perceive the representation of the self. Thompson sometimes draws regular and conventional panels:
2 This chapter only contains references from McCloud’s Understanding Comics, not from Reinventing
Here, Craig and his brother are engaged in a “pee battle.” We see rounded panels; the organic shape almost gives them a liquid quality. The lines bending outward have a billowing, bladder-like shape. The deviating form of the panels and the splashes outside the panel boundaries indicate action and motion, reinforced by the ‘motion lines,’ or ‘zip-ribbons’ that represent the path of moving objects through space (110-11). Thus, Thompson forces the pace of the story. These deviating panels affect the reading experience in such a way that the heat of the moment is imitated, and the escalation of the battle is anticipated.
In the sequence preceding this image, Craig is playing a game with his brother Phil: walking atop the snow without breaking the icy surface. Every time the ice breaks, they lose the game. The panel-less image of Craig falling through the ice visually stands out on the page. The image is not contained by panel boundaries, and there is no gutter and no closure, which gives it a sense of lingering timeless presence. Panels are essentially boxes of time, made meaningful because of closure. A panel-less image, then, is timeless, its meaning can linger on in the reader’s mind.
Special panels such as Fig. 1, a collage of Craig dreaming about gliding through a surreal landscape full of round, paisley-like forms and symbols, occur throughout the novel, and they represent Craig’s imagination, his fantasies and his dreams.3 This type of panels occurs throughout Blankets and it has a special function: they portray the invisible world of emotions, andthey evoke an emotional or sensual response in the viewer (McCloud 121). Thus, what happens inside Craig’s head can be made visible through an evocative, wordless panel. “Because of its unresolved nature,” McCloud explains, “such a panel may linger in the reader’s mind, and its presence may be felt in the panels which follow it” (102). Like borderless panels, they can produce a sense of timelessness. Thompson uses the effect of the contrast between a ‘normally’ structured page and a visually more sensational lay-out on several occasions, stressing the difference between the grim reality of everyday life and the boundless world of his imagination. With the various shapes and sizes of the panels, the pages themselves almost seem to form a quilt, like the one Raina made for
3 Panels the size of a full page are too big to incorporate in the text; they are numbered (Fig. 1) and can
Craig. The panels can be said to symbolize each piece of fabric in the quilt, each one of them having a special emotional connotation.
Gutters and closure
Here, Craig goes up to the attic to search for Raina’s quilt. The emphasis is on the text, on the fact that he did not quite know what he was looking for, until he found it. The text amplifies the images, and evokes a sense of uncertainty, reinforced by its placement in the gutter. McCloud calls this an additive combination of text and images, meaning that “the words amplify or elaborate on an image” (154).
At other times, the gutters, and even the entire frame of the panels, are black:
indicate that at that point in the story, his faith was faltering. The black gutter is a signal to the reader that there is no room for interpretation: this is not Thompson’s narrative voice speaking, this is the authoritative word of God. The black gutter also stresses the importance of Craig’s realization; he finds certain passages in the Bible dubious or even suspicious and he utters that suspicion in grotesquely drawn panels set against the background of black gutters. This is an interdependent combination of text and images, meaning that “words and pictures go hand in hand to convey an idea that neither could convey alone” (McCloud 155).
Even though I categorize closure under form-finding because it creates coherence, unity and patterns, closure can also be said to be Episodic in nature, and thus not be placed in the form-finding category.Closure connects panels, but it also visually divides them into separate units, or very short episodes. This is exemplified in the sequence of panels below, where Thompson connects seemingly unconnected images, or episodes, via the association accomplished by gutters in between gutters:
scene out of those fragments”(89). Through closure, we are endowing the panels with a single identity and, in our minds, consider them as a whole. We are to use these scattered fragments to assemble a single moment, which Thompson facilitates through the “sssssh” and “sshhk sshk” sounds. We know that these sounds do not last only one panel, but that they persist, and make the entire scene linger.
Time and narrative
Blankets consists of different stories, or narrative threads. The main story is Craig’s quest for his own identity, both as a human being and as an artist. Intertwined with this story are other stories: the one of his first love, the struggle with his faith, the relationship with his brother and his parents, the sexual abuse, the high school stories, the church camp stories, and so on. All these stories together form Thompson’s master story. He even tells stories within stories; in that sense, Blankets is a frame story. During the story of his visit with Raina, for instance, Craig tells her the stories of his childhood and how he and Phil used to play. Also incorporated in the story of his visit with Raina, is the story of her dysfunctional family and her parents’ divorce. While Craig and Raina are getting closer, the marriage of her parents is falling apart, impacting hugely on their family life. The different narrative threads can be read as autonomous: each one of the sub-stories can be said to stand on its own, to be a separate episode, and thus, be Episodic. However, the various sub-stories are connected by one overarching framework, one Diachronic master story: religion and the Bible. Passages from the Bible structure and shape the story Thompson is telling, and there are many intertextual links between Blankets and the Bible.
shower is a baptism), and tropes (chiasmus, psalms in honour of Raina). He is concerned not only with the message of the Bible, but also with the Bible as a book, as a collection of stories. Fig. 2 is an eminent example of the symbolic Biblical connotations of many of Thompson’s panels. Craig and Raina are diametrically opposed on the page. On the one side is Craig, or Adam, feeling guilty about wanting Raina, trapped in a landscape of demons and skeletons. These figures represent lust, while in the top corner we see a hint of Craig’s babysitter, who he also associates with the sins of the flesh. He glances shamefully at what is hidden behind the foliage that barely covers Raina’s breasts. On the other side is Raina, or Eve, in a Garden of Eden-setting, offering temptation. Craig associates her with the fruit of the forbidden tree: once he yields to his lust, all will be lost. It is extremely difficult for Craig to deal with feelings of love and lust for the first time; he is brought up with the fixed truth that all matters concerning the flesh are sinful. To make these feelings acceptable for himself, he has to bring his love life in the context of religion, which results in a mixed bag of images. The Bible, then, is an overarching, Diachronic frame: it makes the different sub-stories cohere. Thompson often alternates between timelines, and the religious themes and motifs make the sub-stories connect, because they are always present throughout Blankets. Religion and the Bible are an intrinsic part of Craig’s self, from his early childhood to his adolescence, and the religious frame connects the sub-stories in a temporal sense.
track of the different time-frames, a clear-cut division between past and present is necessary.
Thompson often goes back in time with the use of flashbacks, alternating between his childhood and his adolescence. During these flashbacks, we are taken from the in-between-time, his adolescence, back to the past. Thompson uses this literary device to explain or clarify something in the present. In early color movies, flashbacks were often shown in black-and-white (“pay attention, audience, you are now going back in time!”). Comics’ ways of indicating flashbacks are less obvious. In fact, gutters and captions – like “earlier…” – are most commonly used to introduce a flashback. McCloud states that “[j]ust as pictures and the intervals between them create the illusion of time through closure, words introduce time by representing that which can only exist in time: sound” (95). Thompson frequently breaks panel boundaries to indicate a lapse in time, i.e. he interrupts the outer line of the panel with an indented comment, or he lets the images inside two adjacent panels overflow.
They almost seem to be one panel, with the quilt as a sort of adhesive between the two of them. In reality, though, the gutter between both panels indicates a flashback: the quilt reminds Craig of Raina’s intentions and efforts in making it.
Transitions between panels are highly important in comics story-telling. Thompson has created a sequence of two images, separated by a gutter, but connected by the caption and the quilt, so that we endow the panels with a single, overriding identity, and, consequently, we consider them as a whole (McCloud 73). The two panels above have, what McCloud terms, a scene-to-scene transition: it transports us across significant distances of time and space (71). Deductive reasoning is required here, as we are taken from the now-time to several years before, when Raina was making the quilt. Thompson joins present and past in what seems to be one panel; two different episodes are united in a joint panel. The quilt and the gutter with the indented caption connect present and past, but at the same time separate Craig from Raina in a spatial and a temporal sense, which makes this sequence both Diachronic and Episodic. The quilt is a highly important Diachronic binding agent for the narrative: it keeps reoccurring throughout the text and it establishes coherence and connects the different narrative threads. The quilt is made of different pieces of fabric, representing the various sub-stories that together form a Diachronic unity.
with gutters or separate panels, Thompson depicts the flashback in one single image. Craig and Raina are leafing through her photo album, and when they see a picture of Raina when she was younger, she tells the story of her childhood. In that single image, two time-frames are united, separated by the snapshot of Raina as a little girl. While present and past blend together, the reader is taken back in time, along with Craig and Raina. This is connected to an example that Battersby also mentions. He states that, when looking at old photos, one can be “suddenly struck by one’s sense of the disparity between the person depicted and the person, the self, one is today, very now” (41). I suppose we all know this experience: you* (the “now” you) cannot believe that the person depicted is the same self, you* do not recognize yourself*, you* feel that you* are a different self altogether. Even though the fact that you might not recognize yourself in an old picture is an Episodic realization, Battersby stresses that, even though your looks and your outlook on life have probably changed, you know that, fundamentally, you are still the same person. While wondering who that person in the picture is, with that old-fashioned hair and style of clothes, you know that it is still you.
Drawing style and inner reality
we did not know what the story is about, we would know which parts are positive and which parts are negative.
Craig’s imagination and inner life is represented by an abstract drawing style, while the outside world and everyday life is drawn in a realistic style. McCloud explains that the comics artist can portray the world without through realism, and the world within through abstract cartoons:
When we abstract an image through cartooning, we’re not so much eliminating details as we are focusing on specific details. By stripping down an image to its essential meaning, an artist can amplify that meaning in a way that realistic art can’t. (30)
The abstract forms and monsters that emerge in Craig’s nightmares are a big part of Craig’s self. His self is determined by his Christian upbringing, and every time he is insecure or scared, the Christian guilt complex comes in, represented by the clawed monsters. In Fig. 2, for instance, his feelings of guilt and sinfulness over wanting Raina are represented by skeletal monsters. This feeling of lust is associated with sinfulness, via his babysitter molester and the hellish monsters. Just as the Bible is the overarching frame of the story that brings about continuity, the clawed monsters keep emerging throughout the novel as Diachronic symbols of his repressed angst and Christian guilt complex.
This pseudo-realistic image of Raina’s sewing machine acts as a supplement to the text. Thompson explains that the quilt was made of squares of specially selected fabrics, “arranged in a pattern, repeating themselves, their story was cyclical” (567). By showing the inner workings of the sewing machine, with its turning wheels and the arrows, Thompson emphasizes the cyclical nature of both the machine and the quilt. The machine sews together the different pieces of fabric that together form the quilt, just as Thompson sews together the different narrative threads that together form the master-narrative. Blankets’ cyclical aspect is reinforced by the narrative importance of the sewing machine and the quilt: in the end, Craig realizes that, like the seasons, everything comes and goes. The sewing machine and the quilt are Diachronic tools, with which Thompson indicates continuity, because, like the Biblical elements and the monsters in his nightmares, they tie together otherwise unconnected episodes.
Memory and autobiography
In Blankets, the flashbacks of certain episodes from Craig’s childhood are triggered by objects or thoughts; often, a memory comes alive after he is confronted with an object that used to be important to him. In her article “Narrative Memory, Episodic Memory and W.G. Sebald’s Idea of Memory,” Gloria Origgi explains the workings of autobiographical memory:
The recollection of the past goes through the disordered sensation of whirling images, objects and words floating in our mind. Remembering is thus reconstructing, but not in a narrative mode: like the recollection of space and time of a cabinet des curiosités, the past emerges from complex patterns to vanish away again once we try to make sense of it.
While he sits in the spare bedroom in Raina’s house, he sees the portrait of Jesus. That same portrait hung in his parents’ bedroom; it reminds him of that instant from his childhood when his parents reprimanded him for drawing a picture of a naked lady. The portrait acts as a time machine, once again eliciting the feelings of shame and failing. Although Thompson is reconstructing his memory through a narrative, the process of remembering is not Narrative, since memories are, as Origgi stated, “disordered sensation[s] of whirling images, objects and words floating in our mind.” However, memories are also positively Diachronic in nature, because they are the link between present and past. Memories are an essential part of the self, because they are the stories from the past that define it.
childhood artifacts, because the lines – meant for escape – served as a reminder instead” (59). This is how he represents his guilt and confusion:
The memories, represented by the drawings, are haunting him and it almost seems as if he is trying to shake them off. The symbolic act of burning those memories is the only way to get rid of them. By the time he has lit the fire, the memories literally come out of his head in the third panel; burning his drawings is a purging experience. In the final chapter, Craig’s journey comes full circle when he burns Raina’s letters, photos and sweet high school nothings after having said goodbye to her for good. Apparently, it is his way of disposing of his past. In its essence, it is an Episodic act, because by burning the symbols that represent his past self, he is destroying that part of his self he no longer feels connected to and wants to distance himself from. The drawings and Raina’s keepsakes are an essential part of his past, and by denying or destroying them, he is disconnecting himself from his past.
Voices and roles: the self
these different, and sometimes opposed, personifications. The voice of Craig “the son,” for example, is mostly associated with disappointment, humiliation and failure. As a son, he feels like he can never really live up to his parents’ expectations; not when he was a little boy, and not when he is an adult. Thompson’s style of drawing and writing emphasizes these feelings of inadequacy. The panels below illustrate this:
insignificant creatures called humans. Thompson distances himself from the scene. The fact that the feet and the hands of the father are almost as big as the boy’s entire body, underlines the shame and the humiliation; his parents literally make him feel small.
Fig. 5 is another good example of his parents asserting their influence on Craig. They still think that Craig is a regular churchgoer, when, in fact, he has not been to church in seven years. Even though he is no longer a little boy, he still feels he is inadequate. This is central to the Christian guilt complex; his parents constantly make him feel as if he is letting them down. In the picture, they are embracing him; they are proud that he is their son. Craig, however, feels that he is being insincere, and even though he stands on his own now, he is still afraid of their judgment. This feeling of inadequacy and insincerity is wonderfully illustrated by his parents embracing an empty shell, the outline of the son that he can never be. The parents project all their desires and expectations on a castle in the air, while the ‘real’ Craig is eaten up with moral conflicts.
events; that is the moment when he is narrating his life story. As with many people who narrate their lives, what comes across “is not so much a singularity of voice but rather a deeper level of complexities and conflicts among voices that bubble beneath any surface story” (Raggatt 32). In that sense, Strawson is incorrect in his assertion in “Against Narrativity” that people always speak with just one narrative voice, whether it be Diachronic or Episodic.
