Trauma Writing In Art Spiegelman’s Graphic Novels

Art Spiegelman is a contemporary American Jewish writer.He is currently the only graphic novelist to win a Pulitzer Prize.His two graphic novels,Maus and In the Shadow of no Towers,respectively focused on the Holocaust and the 9/11 terrorist attack,these two are one of the major catastrophic events that occurred in the 20 th and21st centuries,respectively.In these two works,Spiegelman tells the traumatic stories of the survivors of the catastrophic event through a combination of pictures and texts,revealing the mental pain of the trauma patients,and at the same time,shows respect for history and reflection on disaster events by digging the historical truth behind the traumatic story.The body of this article is divided into three chapters.The first chapter introduces the origin and development of graphic novels and some representative viewpoints of trauma theory,provides background introduction and theoretical support for the following discussion.The second chapter takes Maus as the research object.Firstly,it introduces the trauma of the Holocaust suffered by the father and son in Maus,and then from the special animal metaphors,multi-layered narrative structure and nonlinear narrative time analyze the trauma writing strategy of the work.And finally explore the author’s exploration of objective history in the writing of trauma stories through the study of the conflict between father and son in the work,understand the author’s appeal and respect for the truth of the Holocaust based on the creative background.Chapter Three takes In the Shadow of no Towers as the research object and compares it with Maus from various angles.Firstly,introduce the relationship and difference between the 9/11 trauma of the protagonist in In the Shadow of no Towers and the trauma of the Holocaust.Secondly,by analyzing the materiality of the novel and the emphasis on the manual creation process and the multi-layered accumulation of visual elements in the works.The writing method of the author discovers the author’s resistance to the media and the government to cover up and distort the historical truth.Finally,analyzes the intensification of racial conflicts caused by the media and government propaganda in the work and the war intentions behind this one-sided propaganda,discuss the author’s revelation and accusation that the Bush administration deliberately controlled the media and used the9/11 terrorist attacks as a war purpose,but ignored the public’s loss of security after the disaster.In the confrontation between personal trauma history and official history,the author has shown a call to care about the real trauma and face the truth of history.The conclusion of this article is that Spiegelman not only expands the way that graphic novels write traumatic stories in these two works,but also shows respect for historical truth and reflection on historical lessons in trauma writing.