Seamlessly Switching Perspective (and halfway through I start talking about theories of media)
I was drawn to the function of letters in A Cautioner’s Tale as both an expression of different voices and as a metacognitive phenomenon I rarely encounter in literature. As a matter of fact, the last time I’ve seen a letter function within a story was when I read “The Semplica Girl Diaries” from George Saunders’ Tenth of December, when the protagonist’s grandfather wrote a letter refusing to give him any money to bail him out of his financial mistakes. The function of this letter, for me at least, was to break the singular journalistic voice of this story. It was a refreshing change of tone.
Part of the power of these letters is that they are visual. As a thought experiment, I wondered what it would be like to take a page from The Cautioner’s Tale and rewrite it sans images. I’d use only words. Why would I do this? I was hoping to isolate the effect of these letters in order to understand how they work, and why it is possible to shift perspectives so easily.
By robbing the message of its visual environment, it means we need to have “he said, she said” in the text. The letters are from a person, and that person’s words need to be spoken somehow from their voice if we are taking away the visuals. For example, on page 14, Flimsy Morsel writes a letter to Mary Morgan. When I encounter the letter in its original graphic novel landscape, I am allowed to choose when and how I find out about the letter (who wrote it, what they say, etc.). I am allowed to read the letter after I look at the shiny buttons in the corners, too. It’s up to me.
But… when I isolate the experience of those letters/newpspaper clippings into just text, the message has to occur within a different narrative. It is no longer just me as a reader interpreting a collage of images, but Mary the protagonist “seeing” these images and then conveying her interpretation of them to me, the reader. It was another layer of interpretation. It was as if there was a middle-man selling me the information. It is more controlled.
I think when the narrative reigns are loosened, perspective shifts are allowed to occur more organically. The reader is more of a character in the story when they must participate.
Here’s my attempt to take the message from its visual environment (again, from page 14):
“On my table is a letter from Flimsy Morsel on crinkly blue paper. Flimsy waxes on and on with the usual sympathy for having lost the election… it’s all starting to blend together for me. I do appreciate it, but what is with all these buttons? I’ve got no choice but to scatter them around my table. Ah, I see she’s desperate here at the end: ‘I can’t bear the thought of leaving my family with only their ration of cards and monthly flea baths, so I do as Rum says and button my lip. Please help us!’ she writes. Bah. If only she knew it was more complicated than that. I’ve got so many blasted parcels of paper scattered about that I almost missed an important, purple piece of card stalk from Herr Bigly Rump himself! In this oh-so-promising note, he darkens out certain sentences that are his real message: ‘The poor get poorer while the rich get richer.’ We are fooled into thinking that he’s a nice guy, when in fact, if you can read beneath the ink, you will know the truth.”
Something is definitely lost when I rewrite it -- namely, the chance to interpret for myself what I see on the page, and in what order. But something is also gained. When I rewrite Mary Morgan’s experience of these letters and add her thoughts, there is a certain level of added interiority that I can express, and therefore, a reader can feel.
I suppose I am latching onto this media concept because I recently fell into a Marshall McLuhan rabbit hole (actually, I’m always in a McLuhan rabbit hole). He is all about “the medium is the message,” aka it isn’t the content itself that drives meaning, but the platform itself that is meaningful. The message is conveyed through that medium. For example, McLuhan argues that it doesn’t matter whether it is a violent television show or a children’s program, that the effect on society is the same: people are transfixed by screens.
I want to sneak a theory out there, similar to McLuhan’s, that it doesn’t matter what the content of the letter is (be it a plea to Mary Morgan from a fan, or a clue from Canker Reaux). The effect of a letter/article/newspaper clipping within this graphic novel is the same: evidence. Presentation of facts. Something to be investigated. Something to explore. If the reader wants to dig deeper, they just need to notice more details.
Hannah Jane,
ReplyDeleteThis is so insightful. I love McCluhan making a comeback in your analysis. Anyway the theories around the letters as layering voices are well supported by this blog. You also show, through your transformation of the material, drive home the function of the letter and how the interiority of the writer works. This is thoughtful and strong.
Interesting Hannah Jane, I had the opposite experience. I truly felt that since Mary described the letters, they had no impact on the story for me. It didn't seem to make a difference that they were there, or that we could read for ourselves. They do serve as direct evidence, and namely were evidence that "magic" exists, able to deliver letters that are essentially unaddressed to Mary who may or may not even be alive, considering all her colleagues get offed in succession. I felt that the narrative held the story and that the visuals didn't add much.
ReplyDeleteThis was interesting to read and made me want to look back closer at the letters. Mary Morgan is a investigator, so it made sense, to the narrative and her character, to keep physical evidence intact between her own journal pages. The middle man you mention is a concept that intrigued me. I saw it as, since Rump is distorting the information inside the story, how the "true" information is presented is crucial. Since we as readers see the physical letters we have the chance to interpret them ourselves without the possibility of an unreliable narrator. Journals, to me, are personal and insightful but at the same time I cannot bring myself to trust it one hundred percent. I really loved your attempt at taking away the visual to add the interiority. The passage is still visual because I can see what Mary Morgan is doing, but it's like an internal visual. Introspective, I guess.
ReplyDeleteHey Hannah Jane,
ReplyDeleteIt seems as if you and I had roughly the same experience with this piece. Of course yours is a lot more eloquently put, but at its bare bones we've both seemed to sum it up as it not being about the content of the piece, but rather its context. The letters don't serve the same function without their placing or the artifacts and objects that follow. By simply existing, the letters are evidence. They're why we're reading the story. The news clippings are authority to back up the evidence and we're supposed to take it all at face value because it is what's on the page.