What a Different Form of Life Narrative Tells Us
Whitlock discusses in Soft Weapons how modern technology has changed autobiography. In high school I worked on a play called And Then They Came For Us: Remembering the World of Anne Frank, that was another form of life narrative utilizing modern technology. It was a multimedia production; meaning that in between scenes, the character’s real life counterparts talked about their experience on a projection screen. The play revolves around two of Anne Frank’s friends, Eva Geiringer-Schloss (whose mother married Otto Frank, Anne’s father, after the war) and Helmuth Silberberg or “Hello” (who was mentioned in the excerpt of Anne Frank we read). The form of this play has a different effect on the audience than other types of life narratives, affecting their emotions and understanding.
Whitlock mentions how images, such as that of Osama bin Laden, can have an impact of the perception of the rest of the world (pg 5). similarly, in the multimedia production, the audience is seeing as well as hearing accounts of the Holocaust instead of reading. This may integrate a deeper level of emotion into the narrative. Instead of imagining a scene, the way a phrase is delivered and viewed can perhaps be more direct, making a bigger impact on the audience and acting like a “punch” to the their emotions. This also may help the audience connect with the characters as their personhood is more easily conveyed. For example, Anne Frank, is portrayed by an actress in the production. You gain a different perspective of this well known figure when watching her and hearing her being described, then when reading about her from her own point of view. Having a figure right in front of you almost makes her seem more “real”.
The multi character aspect allows the audience to hear several accounts of the holocaust being told from multiple standpoints. Somewhat like a testimonio (Smith and Watson pg 282), this takes away from the individual narratives and turns it into a collective retelling of history. It allows the watcher to piece together the impact Nazi Germany had on people.
This includes the effect it had on non – Jewish Germans. A few scenes of the play featured a Nazi youth soldier, (a young boy in training to become a Nazi soldier. Not a specific person in real life but the idea of one). During one scene, this character talks about the Nazi’s giving him a puppy to take care of, and later, after bonding with the dog, having to kill his puppy. Not only that but the uniform of Nazi youth soldiers is almost identical to boy scouts; this visual helps put the Nazi’s influence into perspective. Often audience member would come up to the cast afterward asking if killing the puppy was true, acting like it was the most horrible thing about the play when the main focus was about teenagers being sentenced to internment camps. Was it the way the line was delivered that created such emotion in the audience or would it have been the same if they read it instead of heard and saw it? Was it so shocking because one seldom hears of Nazi’s struggles in comparison to the people they oppressed?
Different forms of life narratives convey different meanings. Watching instead of reading life narratives could allow the presence of the person behind the words to be more easily recognized by the audience. In addition, hearing the account of multiple characters and multiple groups allows the audience to piece together a fuller account of the event.
Still, James. And Then They Came For Us: Remembering the World Of Anne Frank. N.p.: Dramatic Pub, 1999. Print.
Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography : A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. Second ed. Minneapolis: U Of Minnesota, 2010. Print.
Whitlock, Gillian. Soft Weapons: Autobiography in Transit. Chicago: U of Chicago, 2007. Print.