Irmina is a graphic novel that tells the story of a young German woman, Irmina, beginning in the 1930s and ending in the 1980s. Irmina's story is based on a box of letters and diaries that Barbara Yelin found among her grandmother's things. Without giving too much away, Irmina struggles with integrity and social advancement. What paths are available to her in the pre-Nazi era and during the Nazi regime?
Yelin says that what really struck her about the letters and diaries was how a woman could change so much. Why did Irmina become a person who stopped asking questions, who turned the other way, who became complicit in the Nazi regime? Nazi-Germany was an extraordinary place to live in, but Yelin presents one view of how ordinary people lived their lives.
Without projecting too much into the current political climate, I found myself wondering what it would take for me to either defend or compromise my values and convictions. How do our choices, actions, and inactions support or denigrate our values? Irmina imagines alternative pathways for herself and thinks about the life she wanted to have and indeed could have had if she had chosen differently. Her criticism of Nazism is limited and her recognition of her place and role in the Nazi-regime is almost completely lacking and when present is motivated more by personal desires than a sense of injustice.
No comments:
Post a Comment