Expressing the construction of the autobiographical self in Craig Thompson’s Blankets, a layering of perspectives.

Abstract

This thesis discusses how Craig Thompson’s autobiographical comic Blankets navigates the difficulty of expressing the autobiographical self, one’s identity as expressed through an autobiography. A well known challenge in autobiography studies, the self is generally accepted as too complex to depict fully in autobiography and therefore always simplified when depicted as a character and narrator. Paul J. Eakin (autobiographical theorist) proposes a focus on the way with which these narrator and character are constructed through writing. Translating this focus on construction of the identity in narrative to the comics medium, this thesis does a close reading on the medium-specific opportunities comics offer to emphasis the construction of the fragmented multi-facets autobiographical self. This is done through a theoretical framework combining autobiographical theory using mainly Hillary Chute, Paul J. Eakins, Merces P. Garcia and Thierry Groensteen. This thesis suggests that because of the division of the narrator and character in a visual and verbal register opportunities arise to showcase the layering of perspectives. Creating metafictional reader awareness of the artificial nature of writing/drawing an autobiography, the value of the comics medium for the autobiographical genre is pointed out.