Heavily mythologized at the time, the London Blitz is still memorialized in ways that sustain a sense of national pride. The concept was initiated by Angus Calder in The People’s War (1969) which succeeded in bolstering what it attempted to debunk. Lola Serraf uses Susan Ertz’s Anger in the Sky (1943) to reconsider the ‘Myth of the Blitz’, showing how the novel explores conflicting intellectual arguments for, and justifications of, war and airs differing perspectives on British pressure for active American military involvement. Serraf rejects the categorization of Ertz’s novel as propaganda by foregrounding opposing discourses through the conflicting voices of her characters. Calder’s revision of his ideas The Myth of the Blitz, almost half a century after Ertz’s description of the devastating effects of the Blitz on London and on outlying rural English life, helped to deconstruct the image of a wholly patriotic country united in adversity.
AbstrActas some historians are deconstructing the «Myth of the Blitz», little credit is given to the capacity of wartime writers to see beyond the British government's propaganda. angus Calder states that the literature of the time offers limited material for us to understand what individual experience was really like during the bombings, since only a few authors work outside the Myth's paradigm. This analysis suggests a much more sceptical view of Britain at war in Elizabeth Bowen's short story «Mysterious Kôr» (1942). I highlight how the representation of a Gothic metropolis and the hallucinatory visions of frightened Londoners reject the traditional values of Blitz culture.Keywords: Blitz, Myth, propaganda, national memory, Elizabeth Bowen, gothic.«Mysterious Kor» de Elizabeth Bowen: la representación del Blitz más allá de los paradigmas del mito resumen Mientras algunos historiadores están deconstruyendo el «Mito del Blitz», se le da poco crédito a la capacidad de los escritores de la segunda guerra mundial de ver más allá de la propaganda del gobierno británico. angus Calder sugiere que la literatura de la segunda guerra mundial ofrece poco material para entender cómo fue realmente la experiencia individual durante los bombardeos, ya que pocos autores trabajan fuera del paradigma del «Mito». Este análisis sugiere una visión mucho más escépti-ca de Gran Bretaña en guerra en el relato corto «Mysterious Kôr», publicado en 1942 por Elizabeth Bowen. Destaco cómo la representación de una metrópolis gótica y las visiones alucinatorias de londinenses aterrorizados rechazan los valores tradiciones de la cultura del Blitz.
At a time where so few survivors remain alive and the extermination of European Jews is leaving the field of direct human experience, the evolving collective memory of the event is reflected in popular culture. There has recently been a rise in the number of graphic novels written on the subject of the Shoah, particularly in France, Germany, and North America. These works, written by second or even third-generation survivors nearly 80 years after the genocide, approach the event from perspectives that not only further Art Spiegelman’s path in that they challenge the so-called limits of Holocaust representations, but also open up new discussions on transgenerational trauma. Focusing on two graphic novels, Michel Kichka’s Deuxième génération: Ce que je n’ai pas dit à mon père (2012) and Jérémie Dres’ Nous n’irons pas à Auschwitz (2011), my aim here is to examine the new aspects of trauma that these texts present, more specifically the reluctance to deal with one’s past, the struggle to bear the weight of the ‘sacred’ memory of Auschwitz, and in some cases the lack of interest of the youth in the Shoah. Both these autobiographical texts narrate the story of men who end up making the conscious decision never to go to Auschwitz after finding out about their ancestors’ history, asserting their desire to not solely be defined by their family tragedy. These issues, which fit in with what Matthew Boswell and Joost Krijnen define as ‘Holocaust impiety’, mark a break with graphic novels from the 1970s and 1980s which, as Gillian Rose writes, ‘mystified’ the event as ‘something we dare not understand’.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.