Trauma e fumetto: il viaggio in Italia di Ulli Lust

Abstract

Heute ist der letzte Tag vom Rest deines Lebens is an autobiographical graphic novel by the Austrian author Ulli Lust. Ulli, who is a rebellious seventeen-year old “punk” girl and the protagonist of the book, went for a hitchhiking trip across Italy. Although Ulli enjoyed the journey and the new sense of freedom, she also ran into many difficulties. Italy is depicted as a male-dominant society, where women are regarded as sexual objects. During her trip Ulli had to face molestations, sexual assaults and even rape. Some of the comic’s most dramatic pages represent the effects of violence on the protagonist, such as feelings of shame and nightmares. This article focuses on the verbal and graphic  representation of a trauma. With the support of trauma studies, I will analyze the sequence of images representing rape and argue that this is an illustration of a "post-traumatic stress disorder". Usually narrating a traumatic event represents a great challenge, because of the incommunicable and unutterable nature of traumas. I will argue that comics can overcome the difficulties of narrating a traumatic event thanks to the combined use of text and images.