Collins, Meghan A.

English

Dartmouth Digital Commons (Dartmouth College)

Dartmouth College Dartmouth Digital Commons Comparative Literature M.A. Essays Comparative Literature 2018 Graphic Self-Care in Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? and Dominique Goblet’s Faire semblant c’est mentir Meghan A. Collins Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/complit_essays  Part of the Comparative Literature Commons Recommended Citation Collins, Meghan A., "Graphic Self-Care in Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? and Dominique Goblet’s Faire semblant c’est mentir" (2018). Comparative Literature M.A. Essays. 171. https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/complit_essays/171 This M.A. Essay is brought to you for free and open access by the Comparative Literature at Dartmouth Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Comparative Literature M.A. Essays by an authorized administrator of Dartmouth Digital Commons. For more information, please contact dartmouthdigitalcommons@groups.dartmouth.edu. Meghan Collins Senior Lecturer Annabelle Cone  Graphic Self-Care in Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother?  and Dominique Goblet’s Faire semblant c’est mentir   In this paper, I consider two graphic memoirs, Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? and Dominique Goblet’s Faire semblant c’est mentir. Although worlds apart stylistically, I find some striking and suggestive thematic parallels between the two. Both narratives focus on inadequate or abusive mother figures; both investigate the remembrance and repetition of childhood trauma, lack of parental care, and the need to search for care elsewhere in adulthood; and both revolve around psychic pain and healing. But the most thought-provoking similarity between the two—the moment from which my paper launches—is the way in which, in both narratives, an illustration of the mother mending a tear in the daughter’s pants is transformed into an allegory for the artist’s relationship to art. The mother’s mending thus becomes the key to an overarching statement that each book seems to make about graphic memoir itself. Care received from mothers/others is ultimately displaced by a doctrine of self-care—self-care which lies in the therapeutic potential of autobiographical graphic art.  “Graphic medicine” has become a popular term for the study of graphic novels about illness, pain, trauma, and healing, while also referring to the practical application of comics as a healing tool for patients, both readers and writers. My approach to Bechdel and Goblet draws on theories of “graphic medicine.” However, I propose to analyze Are You My Mother? and Faire semblant c’est mentir through the more specific lens of what I propose to call “graphic care.” Although I do not take issue with “graphic medicine,” I find that these two graphic memoirs in particular bear witness to the need for an additional set of terminology. More specifically, my reading of these texts calls for a discussion of “graphic self-care.”         

Graphic Self-Care in Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? and Dominique Goblet’s Faire semblant c’est mentir

https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1171&context=complit_essays

Graphic Self-Care in Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? and Dominique Goblet’s Faire semblant c’est mentir

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