Getting Graphic

Anya’s Ghost is interesting, most obviously, for its medium. It’s not often you’re assigned a graphic novel for a college level English literature course; the first thing to come to your mind would probably be old novels set in Victorian England with a main character named something really conspicuous and written like the author was being paid 10 cents per word. So this kind of thing is definitely a change. And when I first looked up the title at the beginning of the semester, I remember being particularly intrigued by it, seeing as how it was a graphic novel, and how we might go about dissecting its contents in the context of critical analysis.

In all the years I’ve been studying English literature, this is the first time to encounter a novel like Anya’s Ghost, hence why I may be hesitant to write about it. Though the content as a coming of age story shouldn’t necessarily be that affected by whatever medium it’s told through, there’s still a lot of adjustment to be done when drinking in the novel. In graphic novels, there isn’t much third person omniscient writing to tell the story, but they rely on dialogue and visuals instead, much closer to television and movies probably than to other written novels. 

When doing a close reading of a regular written novel, symbolism and themes are always important to think about, and the way you go about finding them is comparably different to how you’d find them in a show or movie. Rather than relying on your memory completely, it might be important to consider all the visual aspects of the story; how characters are drawn, what other things are drawn into the frames. And without the added aspect of some all knowing narrator or first person point of view, deducing themes and symbols from dialogue may pose as a bigger challenge than usual. And if not a bigger challenge, at least a noticeably different challenge. Besides Anya’s Ghost being a graphic novel, there’s also the fact that the story’s main relationship follows a living girl and a ghost. This might change the dynamics of their friendship, which would be something worth paying attention to while reading. 

After sneaking a peek at the novel on Google Images, I might actually say that I might enjoy this medium more so than other novels. As a visual learner, it’s easier for me to interact with pictures, and I find myself more captured by dialogue. It also feels like it adds to the experience of reading about adolescence, with the comic format reminiscent of children’s books. It’s also fun to be able to see the characters how the artist and author intended, but still being able to make your own conclusions about other aspects of the story that are implicit. 

When we reach this novel, my plan is to pay attention to expressions, as expressions are oftentimes a huge indicator of the mood of the story, and if we have such a direct exposure to them in the form of visuals, it might be helpful for how I read the story. I think it’ll be important to remind myself how Anya’s Ghost differs from other titles we’ve read, but also how it’s similar. Reading it will be a different experience, but at the root of everything, it’s another story about how an adolescent matures, and I’m excited to see how the existence of a supernatural character, such as the ghost of Emily, might influence how Anya’s story transpires. 
Another thing about graphic novels is the lack of dialogue as well. When depicting a story through pictures, it’s not unsurprising that there would be panels without words or conversation. Similar to in other novels, reading between the lines is an essential part of critical analysis. So I think I would try to pay extra attention to parts of the story that maybe lack words, but are still saying something through the visuals. This is something that might take some getting used to, as in written novels, the information gained from reading between the lines requires a lot of close reading and personal brain mapping, where as in a graphic novel such as this, reading between the lines might become something more like reading between the panels.

Julia Popule