The Literariness of Hybrid Forms: The Place of Autographics Persepolis, Fun Home and Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? in the Literary Field

Abstract

This thesis explores the place of autobiographical comics in the literary field. Since Art Spiegelman’s Maus was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1992, there has been an increase in the attention of literary prizes and the literary field for the medium of comics. It is striking that this attention mostly stretches to autobiographical comics in particular. This study aims to show that the three autobiographical comics Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, and Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant by Roz Chast are indeed literary, even though it is a hybrid form that combines image and text. The study is based on the work of Rita Felski on literariness and gives an overview of the current debates in the academic field of comics and life writing. Satrapi, Bechdel and Chast use the comics form to deal with memory processes and trauma, whereby they construct a new literary aesthetic. Because of the form and its literary qualities, the reader constantly is invited to engage with the text in different ways. In this way, the thesis aims to show that the autobiographical comic has some inherently literary qualities.