Photography and Trauma in W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz and in Graham Swift’s Out of this World

Abstract

Recently, many critics have investigated the relationship between trauma, memory and photography, and they have suggested that the photograph can be a potential medium that can capture the traumatic experience more efficiently than language. The incomprehensibility of trauma and the question of its representation are frequent themes in post-Second World War literature as well. Many narratives, especially Holocaust fictions deal with the correspondence between the photographic image and traumatic memory. W. G. Sebald’s novel, Austerlitz and Graham Swift’s Out of this World are two such narratives, both exploring the close relationship between trauma and photography. In this thesis, I provide a brief overview of the importance of the visual representation of trauma in psychoanalysis and of the similarities between trauma and the photographic image. I also explore how Sebald’s Austerlitz and Swift’s Out of this World deal with the complex relationship between trauma and photography.