Christie Dooley
In his essay “From Realism to Virtual Reality: Images of
America’s Wars,” American cultural historian H. Bruce Franklin characterizes
literature as an “art form capable of projecting the action of warfare as
temporal flow and movement.” He boldly states that Joseph Heller’s satirical
novel Catch-22 “most insightfully”
illustrates the aerial bombing of World War II. As classic as Catch-22 might be, I believe Lee Miller
provides equally valuable insight in her 1944 essay “The Siege of St. Malo,” in
which she describes a firsthand experience of World War II. Writing in the first person (unlike Heller’s
narrative, which is written in third person omniscient), Miller certainly
captures the action, temporal flow, and movement of the siege—“It was time to
go,” she writes, and then shortly after, “Time passed slowly, slowly, tensely.”
She conjures burning buildings,
Vesuvius-like thunder, belches of smoke, and the poised silence of each moment
in between. Furthermore, she hints at language and gender barriers between
herself and her company. Though she “projected” herself into the struggle,
surrounded by unpredictable gunfire and detached body parts, the soldiers still
treated her as an accessory. One asks
her to photograph (and kiss) the Polish deserters, and another demands, “Hey
lady take my picture, put it in the paper!” I find that as much as Miller sympathizes with her male companions going into battle, she also recognizes their inflated self-importance. Nevertheless, Miller seems like she
is in her natural habitat, even inside the bomblines. A dedicated
photojournalist, she drags her cramped body from post to post, looking for
permission to take pictures and making do in an abandoned photo shop. Miller’s description
of the stench of dead bodies, or lost cats yowling in the night, gives dimension to her experience of war in a way photographs cannot.
1 comment:
I like how your post relates to what we have been talking about in class as it relates to the truth behind photographs and what they can portray. I think you hit the nail on the head about how writing can sometimes activate all the senses and one's imagination in ways images cannot. Sometimes I find myself subcontiously acknowledging this fact when someone asks me about a recent movie I have seen. The conversation goes something like "have you seen this movie". I say "yes it was good, but have you read the book? The book is great." I think that pretty much says it all. Instead of being a passive viewer we turn into an active part of the story or narrative; creating the scenes as we imagine them to be. That in itself is incredibly powerful.
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