Representation is a process of composition wherein composers make stylistic choices in order to position responders to see aspects of human experience in new ways. Mark Raphael Baker, in his 1997 historical memoir, The Fiftieth Gate, deliberately chooses a fragmented, polymorphous structure united within an overarching narrative to embody how the disparate aspects of past human experience can be understood through the symbiotic reconciliation of the once polar oppositions of history and memory. Like Baker, Joe Kubert, in his graphic novel, Yossel April 19, 1943, deliberately chooses a raw drawing style and fictionalised recreations of silenced voices of the past to embody the subjective reality that is omitted from documented history. Both …show more content…
Like Baker, he draws upon his parent’s stories, authenticated references of dates, times and places, and letters received from survivors and relatives to fill in the omissions. He represents archival data with illustrations of concentration camp buildings to create an impression of representational veracity alongside the subjective nature of individual memory. Combining historical statistics with a military and fishing lexical chain, “In 1939, Hitler invaded and conquered Poland. Two million Jews were swept up in the net of Hitler’s Final Solution,” he metaphorically represents Hitler and the “Nazi overlord[‘s]” corrupt nature to validate his own perspective that the Holocaust was an evil, systematic slaughter. He enters into the realm of cultural memory, as he uses the mind of one person as representative of collective history of the experiences of those who lived through, experienced and died in, the ghettos and the concentration camps of the Holocaust. To create a powerful sense of emotional connection between the Holocaust survivors, reminiscent of Baker’s Buchenwald Boys, Kubert deliberately chooses the alliterative anaphora, “we huddle...for warmth. For consolation. For courage. For confirmation,” to highlight the affective dimension omitted from …show more content…
Recognising the countless irretrievable perspectives, Kubert chooses fictionalised recreation to gain access to the silenced voices of the past. Basing these recreations upon other survivors’ memory and documentation, he gains a greater understanding of the complexities of human attitude and behaviour at the time. He establishes an emotional connection to past events, which history lacks, through his raw drawings to recreate the horrific realities of “men, women and children, slaughtered in the streets. Families running like headless chickens.” The pencil renderings symbolise the raw emotions and immediacy that are essential to communicate a comprehensive representation of the past to prevent these “horrible fairy tales” from reoccurring. Contrasting drawings with borders and others without, detailed faces juxtaposed to faceless figures embodies memory’s elusive nature and the need to enrich them with historical data and imagined realities. Sole reliance on one aspect on history restricts an individual’s capacity to be empathetically enlightened and illuminate more of the