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Gilmore, Shawn. "Public and Private Histories in Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan." The Comics of Chris Ware. Drawing is a Way of Thinking. Eds. David M. Ball and Martha B. Kuhlman. Jackson: Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2010. 146–58. Added by: joachim (7/22/10, 2:02 PM) Last edited by: joachim (7/29/14, 2:33 PM) |
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| Resource type: Book Chapter Language: en: English DOI: 10.14325/mississippi/9781604734423.003.0011 BibTeX citation key: Gilmore2010 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: "Jimmy Corrigan", Narratology, Paratext, Reception, USA, Ware. Chris Creators: Ball, Gilmore, Kuhlman Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi (Jackson) Collection: The Comics of Chris Ware. Drawing is a Way of Thinking |
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In his graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, Chris Ware employs narrative content that is shaped by a paratextual framework of prose and images, dubbed “General Instructions” and “Corrigenda,” respectively. This chapter examines how these non-narrative pages inform the novel’s narrative structure and argues that the novel draws a sharp distinction between the realms of public and private history. More specifically, it analyzes the complex juxtaposition of the public history of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the private history of the Corrigan family. The chapter demonstrates how Jimmy Corrigan weaves together a distanced, historical perspective that relies primarily on an iconic mode of representation with a more personal register that reflects Jimmy’s subjectivity. It also comments on the reading method prescribed by “General Instructions” and shows that in this version of comics theory, the reader can synthetically understand the entire meaning of the novel.
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