Comparing the Tropes of Silence in David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars, Art Spiegelman’s Maus, and Winfried Georg Sebald’s On the Natural History of Destruction

Tőke, Ferenc (2025) Comparing the Tropes of Silence in David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars, Art Spiegelman’s Maus, and Winfried Georg Sebald’s On the Natural History of Destruction. Pro&Contra, 7 (1). pp. 63-84. ISSN 26308916

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Abstract

This paper compares the tropes of silence found in David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars, Art Spiegelman’s Maus, and Winfried Georg Sebald’s On The Natural History of Destruction using the methodology of New Historicism. These three works deal with World War II traumatic experiences: the Holocaust, the internment of Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the strategic bombardment of German cities. The first question of the analysis focuses on the possibility of processing trauma experience through silence and questions whether remembrance is a more effective way of healing trauma. The process of coping with trauma reveals where the boundaries of representation lie and offers opportunities to expand them. It raises a second question concerning the role of visual representation in coping with trauma experience. The current study scrutinizes the characters of these three works to answer these questions while considering the historical context. The issue is closely related to Marianne Hirsch’s concept of postmemory and the theme of intergenerational trauma. The analysis’s main points also involve language use and its connection to visual representation, the mental and social factors surrounding trauma experience, and the effects of war on characters..

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