Hello readers!

These last few weeks my ASTU 100 class has been reading the graphic narrative Safe Area Gorazde The War in Eastern Bosnia, by Joe Sacco. In this narrative Sacco travels to Gorazde, a safe area in Bosnia during the war from 1992-1995 in order to report on the state of the town and its citizens. This book has quickly become one of my favorite pieces of literature, due mainly to the fashion in which journalist Sacco so animately portrays the town of Gorazde and the people who preside in it. Sacco brings the town characters to life by integrating himself into the culture and lives of the people he meets there, and is in turn able to create a unique image of what life within Gorazde was truly like. Joe Sacco managed to take a small war torn town that had been largely invisible to the world, and give it a face. Sacco not only personalized the war in Eastern Bosnia by putting faces and personalities to the victims and soldiers, but his style and accounts made you grieve for individuals in a war with thousands of casualties.

There are many people who believe that graphic narratives do not belong in the classroom, and that they belittle and possibly over simplify the facts of history. However, I strongly believe that Safe Area Gorazde The War in Eastern Bosnia would not have produced the effect that it did if it was written in a more formal, traditional style. Without the graphic narrative aspect, Sacco would have simply been relaying a mass of interviews and facts, and certain important words or moments would have been lost among the homogenous pages. Instead, what the graphic narrative has managed to do in this situation, is allow Sacco to highlight certain moments and memories through impactful images in order to tell a deeper story.

It is my opinion that the characters in Sacco’s book contained far too much life and personality to be constrained to words. Although words can be incredibly strong, it’s been said many times that a picture is worth a thousand words; in the case of Gorazde that could not be more true. Many of the images Sacco draws are incredibly violent and detailed, such as the images in the section “Around Gorazde” in which Rahim tells his story. Rahim has been an eye witness to countless horrid acts of violence; including the day by day murder of men, women, and children in his town. From his window, Rahim watched dozens of innocent families be dragged out to the bridge by his house, have their throats cut, and be thrown into the river. He repeats the words “I was an eye witness” multiple times throughout his account, as if to reassure us of the legitimacy of his words. Although Rahim’s personal account would have still made an impact if solely written in words, the images added an entire layer of emotions onto the story. To actually see such violence, even if only through drawings, made it feel almost as if we were standing right there next to Rahim the whole time, and witnessing it with him.

One main theme that I noticed throughout Sacco’s book were faces. When introducing important characters, Sacco tended to use an entire frame on solely their face. In the case of Rahim, Sacco drew him with exactly the same expression in every frame: tired and grief stricken. This portrayal of Rahim, years after the events occurred, may represent the long lasting effects of trauma. Throughout the pictures Sacco drew, we see a side of Rahim that could not have been shown the same way through text; we see in his eyes that Rahim’s spirit was broken throughout the course of the war.

Rahim was not the only example of Sacco’s use of faces to portray emotions; in fact several times throughout the book the faces of the characters said more than the words did. One of the best examples of this is the last frame on page 90 where Edin tells the story of him and his father finding their neighbor’s burnt body. The faces of the four men are painted with grief, disgust and disbelief. This image is so strong that it would have been able to stand alone without a caption. Contrastingly on page 50, the top image of “Silly Girls” depicts three women whose eyes and faces show them as happy, excited, and even a little shy. This particular style allows Sacco to tell a much deeper story than what is seen on the surface, and what is interpreted from words. Instead of only thinking of the girls as “silly”, we see that they are more down to earth than that, and have real emotions other than silliness. The style that Sacco uses allows us to be transported into the town of Gorazde. While reading the narrative, I almost feel as if I am the reporter interviewing the characters and walking among the town.

Although I personally argue in favor of graphic narratives, there are many who disagree. Because of this we come to ask, should graphic narratives be used to teach history to students in a classroom? Or do they tend to over simplify history to the point of near fiction? Think about it.

Thank you for reading! Until next time!

Mia Spare