writing_womans_lives_symposium_paper_book_v2

scenes intentionally. Barry also draws her present avatar in the process of creating her work. Since
Marchetto recounts only a certain time frame of her life, that is her diagnosis and recovery from
breast cancer, her narrating voice is not distanced from that of her avatar, although all these
narrations are naturally conceived in retrospect that is after the events take place. These three books
will be examined further in the following sections.
Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons
Lynda Barry names her work as autobiofictionalography in the introductory pages of One Hundred
Demons and adds a metafictional question in two frames to explain her point “Is it autobiography if
parts of it are not true? Is it fiction if parts of it are?” These metafictional questions—asked by the
adult narrator who is sitting at her desk and drawing—is the proof that Barry is not content with just
telling the story but reaching out to the reader to ponder upon the authenticity of life writing. In a
way, she is trying to establish a pact between herself and the reader without stating the parts that
are fictional and/or factual. A further examination of the two frames yields more information. The
first frame shows the narrator with a blank paper, with a brush in her hand, ready to draw, whereas
the second frame depicts her after the drawing is completed. Therefore the question includes the
suggestion that the book moves closer to factuality (or actuality) maybe more so than intended in
the beginning.
Barry uses thick and round lines and her illustrations are colored. Each section has a different
colored background and/or the major color choices change slightly. The gestures of her characters
are graphically exaggerated such as the characters in the “Dancing” section where the figures have
curved and elongated arms. Such amplification serves to emphasize feelings related to the
surroundings. The book consists of seventeen sections plus the “intro” and the “outro” sections that
start with how the author conceives the ideas of her demons. A two‐page collage precedes each
section beginning where the title of that particular section is decorated with objects like real
photographs, dried flowers, lace pieces or origami animals. Several other critics have also noted
these elaborated pastiches. 5 Barry names these pages as the “bumpiness” of her work, parts that are
unlike the two dimensional cartoons in the rest of the book. Each section corresponds to what the
narrator calls a “demon” and are subsequently titled “Head Lice and My Worst Boyfriend,” “Lost
World,” “Dancing,” “Common Scents,” “Resilience,” “Hate,” “the Aswang,” “Magic,” “the Visitor,”
“San Francisco,” “My First Job,” “Magic Lanterns,” “Cicadas,” “Dogs,” “Girlness,” “the Election,” “Lost
and Found.” These demons represent aspects of narrator’s life that she feels uncomfortable with or
struggles to change as a child and later as an adult.
Barry’s Irish and Filipina backgrounds are elements of her illustrations. She draws the setting of
the multicultural working class environment from a young child’s perspective. The child avatar
experiences several traumatic events as evidenced in her comment, “This ability to exist in pieces is
what some adults call resilience.” She continues her remarks as “And I suppose in some way it is a
kind of resilience, a horrible resilience that makes adults believe children forget trauma.” 6 She also
notes, “Can’t remember / Can’t forget” in the beginning page of the same section, “Resilience.” In
fact there are many instances of pain and distress in the book. Other children discriminate and do
not want to talk or play with her, she is ridiculed for her looks, behaviors and bodily smells, she feels
out of place and alienated even in her household, she is mistreated and abused in her romantic
attachments, and she has trouble maintaining friendships.
Perhaps one of most traumatic events occurs at the last frame of “Resilience” section. This single
frame shows the child avatar in a yellow‐stripped short dress, sitting in a green garden or field with
red flowers on the side, playing with her doll. A grown up man in brown trousers with a cigarette in
his hand is standing up next to the child. His face and upper body are not visible but the child is
looking up to him and slightly smiling. His speech balloon reads, “Hey there, sweetheart. Do you and
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