Mourning in Colors : 9/11 Trauma and the Visual in Alissa Torre's American Widow

Details

Supervisors

Bragard, Véronique

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en langues et lettres modernes, orientation germaniques

Abstract

enTerrorist attacks are multiplying in our present society. However, 9/11 was the first attack of this scale and its impact still resonates nowadays. This dissertation briefly introduces the graphic representations of 9/11 in several comics and graphic novels. Some theory is given about 9/11 trauma and its characteristics. Those two sections enable the reader to develop his/her knowledge about some theory needed to understand the main part of the dissertation, namely the analysis of Alissa Torres’s American Widow. It is a graphic novel that was published by Villard in 2008 and in which Torres tells her aftermath of 9/11 as she was pregnant when her husband died in one of the towers. The representations of her trauma are analyzed thanks to different approaches such as the rupture in the chronology or the presence of repetitions as well as the presence and absence of words in the panels. Following this first part of the analysis, the tensions between the private and the public/political spheres present in the graphic novel will also be dealt with. The elements adding to those tensions will also be considered, namely colors and photographs.