First, please excuse my lateness.
I love the way the title is integrated into the story, much in the way a credits and introductions roll in modern television shows after the episode has begun, with a bit of a teaser. I don't think I've ever found that in a novel, the cover usually tells you what the title is, and there's little way around not knowing the title before reading the book. And even though I knew the title before reading these panels, I still very much liked the placement.
I really like these shorts that pack a punch. "But I Can't" seemed pretty simple at the start but after just four pages you realize how rich it actually is. In those four pages, we learn about both the narrator and Harriet. I like to ask myself when reading graphic literature whether or not the story being told would be as successful if were strictly text, strictly literature. Images like that last panel, for me, make this medium the most successful for the story. The parallel between Harriet's mom running off (read: carelessly) with a young banker and the
image of Harriet standing alone in the wild knocks me on my ass. Maybe it's just me and the idealistic empowerment I get from the idea of a woman running off and leaving everything behind, and the implied reassurance that her daughter, Harriet, was, in a way, able to do the same thing.
While the author opened the story at first documenting her life and experience, I think it was Harriet's story that told the most about both of them. You can read the conflict the author has, having believed so willingly at first in the presence of extraterrestrial life, having an entire friendship based on it, and then to learn otherwise overtime in a number of ways, to have one's way of believing mature. Harriet's search for answers left her searching in the woods, because as a child, the only answer as to why her mother could leave her would be that she was literally taken by something alien. Our narrator's mother kindly informs us that Harriet's mother was, in a way, taken by something alien, though it was not extraterrestrial.
The narrators unwillingness to share her "alien" story with her peers denotes her belief that Harriet's mother was not abducted by literal aliens from outer space, but rather, taken by the search for a different life. That last hopeful image in that last panel left me with the feeling that the narrator knew that her friend Harriet hadn't been abducted by literal aliens either, but that she had in a sense, found her mother in herself, and gone to find a different life.
This is a very liberated interpretation Monica, i truly appreciate how it parallels the feelings of power and escape. something alien which we assume might be e.t., may not be. good catch
ReplyDeletee
"Our narrator's mother kindly informs us that Harriet's mother was, in a way, taken by something alien, though it was not extraterrestrial."
ReplyDeleteI like the way you construct your argument around the multiple connotations of the word "alien," and I think this idea warrants more discussion. Harriet's mother was drawn away by something alien; whether that something is an extraterrestrial or a new life, either way, the circumstances of Harriet's mother's disappearance are foreign to Harriet's capacity for comprehension.
I like your comparison of the title placement to a television show. That sheds some new light on my initial response, which was, "what the hell?!" I am apparently conditioned to a more linear structure of graphic works, and it took me more than one reading to figure out what the artist was doing with that panel.
ReplyDeleteI also appreciate your interpretation of the final panels, as mine was a bit more dark and a lot less hopeful.