Narrative and Image in the commemoration of War: The Blog of L.T. Smash

Abstract

This article distinguishes between “narrative commemoration” referring to a war story with a beginning and an end rooted in a civilian context, and “image commemoration” referring to the freezing of the warrior’s image while ignoring or defying the civilian surroundings. It is argued that the representation of war by the means of popular culture tends to turn away from narrative toward image commemoration, which involves a distortion rather than commemoration of veterans’ war experience. The distinction between the two types of commemoration, and the distortion involved in the transformation from narrative to image, are demonstrated in reference to one online journal, or “blog,” by a soldier in the 2003 Iraq War.