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March 15, 2021

Tim Schmidt
Conference ACLA 2021

Nothing to Remember in W.G. Sebald's Emigrants

The memory itself is not a smorgasbord containing infallible perceptions of all situations

and circumstances; nevertheless, it is a distillation of some sort of our experiences (Attig 38). It is

evident that the threshold between reality and fiction is vague, and the result is their

condensation. I reject the question whether photography can sustain memory as the development

of social media has lead to a loss of individuality. It is not essential if it is my photo or yours,

because both are representations of an imagined reality. Nowadays more than ever they are

indicators of everyday life. Their effects on consciousness and memory are manifold but a part of

those is not yet properly understood. What we surmise from social media tools from Instagram to

online learning is that the perception, deprived of fantasy, requires imagination which is

hypocritical and deceptive. We would normally anticipate that the practice of photography in the

context of social media will lead to creation of long-lasting memories, yet, the contrary takes

place - it reduces the enjoyment of perception, and by overstimulating the senses, the possibilities

of remembering become dull. Walter Benjamin points out, the moment is shocked, and

imagination and fantasy are thwarted and become irrelevant. (B 457/646-647).

In reviewing the pictures in the 'Emigrants', the reader becomes aware that the apparent

indexicality does not exist; the pictures match the story, but any other picture with corresponding

pattern would produce the same effect. As Sebald mentioned: "But the written word is not a true

document." There is still the question of how can photography enable transition from seeing into

saying? Furthermore, is photography an accessory to memory?

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The Lacanian gaze as objet petit a  provides a convincing point of view in answering

these questions. The combination of photography and text becomes an authentic document as it

brings saying and seeing together and is a complete testimony to the process of memorizing. The

meaning and the purpose of photographs and the text are the same, and both become alienated

from the subject and its object. The function of the written word and the picture extends beyond

seeing and saying. Thus, as Victor Burgin points out, language is a tool among others to organize

the world. “In the very moment of being perceived, objects are placed within an intelligible

system of relationships”

Sebald gives us back what photography takes away, and the shock of the moment that, in

Benjamin's words, the Aura becomes an object of the past that looks back at us. Photography is

the missing element — a true document of the written word because it helps us understand the

recreation of memory in its totality. "The greater the range in the objects variants, the richer the

semantic possibilities” — and that in itself constitutes reality of the world.

Disaffection in the context of memory plays a vital role in Sebald's work. The language is an

entity but in itself estranged from the subject. Sebald even goes as far as to argue that the written

word is not a true document (Scholz 104). Furthermore, the narration in  Emigrants  reproduces

the effects of alienation as well. The narrator(s) tell stories of deceased personalities that crossed

their paths on different occasions, leaving an impression which became essential in uncover the

story. This is the story of the others told by others, and the tragedy of fates which is lost in the

dust of memory.

Moreover, the protagonists of the stories as emigrants are aliens in their new surroundings, and

the ultimate outcome is the failure to adapt. The text attempts to make a realistic portrayal of

remembering as a vague process composed of visual and verbal stimuli. Nevertheless, the
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placement of the pictures in the text appears rather deliberate. Emigrants — a mosaic of text and

photography — is the story of others, a recollection of past impressions. “Zerstöret das Letzte die

Erinnerung nicht / And the last remnant memory destroys “(Sebald A/B 5).

Narration as a pile of broken fragments

The cover picture of one of the English translations

provides insight into the structure of the novel's, where

the short stories are seemingly related without having

direct connection. Emigration, alienation, being lost,

life, and death are the topics bringing these fragments

together. Pictures are the fragments which supplement

the meaning or context which is left out in the text,

opening new possibilities of representation and the

recreation of memory. The photos are all black and

white, and they follow the flow of text.

This is the edge of the darkness, he said.

As Eduardo Cadava said (quote),

"Photography is a mode of bereavement. It speaks

to us out of mortification. (End Quote)". All we see

in this example is a man photographed in

inadequate lightning at a beach on a stormy day. At

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the end of the passage, the picture becomes the visual counterpart of the metaphor. "This is the edge of

darkness." Nothing is said and the reader cannot perceive anything distinct. The man in the dark becomes

the outline of darkness, and though we cannot see his eyes, it appears that he is looking at us in turn.

"More than any textual system, the photograph presents itself as `an offer you cannot refuse` / it now

shows a `thing` which we invest with a full identity, a being." The combination of a visual and lingual

metaphor lays a hopeless, blue veil over the story without explicitly mentioning any disaster. Benjamin

explained that the first viewers of daguerreotypes expressed dread of staring, as they seemed to not be at

ease with the faces on the pictures looking back (Benjamin A 370). Uncle Kasimir is gazing out into the

ocean — the document reveals a feeling of deep sadness about something that cannot be said because

nothing is known, and the dialogue partners do not know about it either.

"The imaginary object here, however, is not imaginary in the usual sense of the word it is

seen; it has projected an image. An analogous imaginary investure of the real constitutes an early

and important construction of the self, that of the `mirror stage` in the formation of the human

being, described by Jacques Lacan (Burgin 147)." This hypothetical model of personality

development contains two important expressions, "That is you" and "That is me." First is the

realization concerning the other; the subject becomes, in the Freudian sense, separated from the

totality of the mother. The second one is the realization of the self in front of what is yet not

assimilated, and at the same time, a temporary rejection of reality.

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The gaze places the individual within the context of a certain social position. Every subject

fulfills different roles simultaneously, and acts and assumes appearances with regard to the Other.

The scopic drive is the main force that confronts the subject within the other's imagination, in the

sense of seeing. (B 218) An embarrassing situation is not awkward as long as we think that no

one is watching,

but "the gaze is

this object lost

and suddenly

refund in the

conflagration of

shame, by the

introduction of the
Figure by Philip Boxer, Lacanticles.
other" (Lacan 182). The function of Jacques Lacan's petit a  is to remedy a lack of completeness;

this completeness however, cannot be achieved because it is an idealism that does not correspond

to the real motions of life. For instance, an essential element of desire is the lack of ability of its

permanent satisfaction. 

The photo as an instrument of desire, the gap that it fills, no matter how imperfectly, become

detrimental when the whole experience and activity is reduced to a photo and what the other

thinks about it. However, in Emigrants it helps elevate the written word to the status of a true

document as it becomes the visible aspect of the past. Furthermore, it is not that Sebald's photos

are not lacking in certain respect; they lack for instance, the perspective of the past — sometimes

in the same way as the text. However, the combination of text and picture awakens the desire to
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recreate the past. The novel helps develop a complete understanding of how to reach the past as a

totality which is left in the dark.

"Memory, he added in a postscript, often strikes me as a kind of dumbness. It makes

one's head heavy and giddy as if one were not looking back down the receding
perspectives of time but rather down on the earth from a great height, from one of those
towers whose tops are lost to view in the clouds." (Sebald A/B 214-215)

Sebald has shown the

possibility of recovering that part

of the moment which the

photograph had removed. The

shock, the declined Aura as a

component of the involuntary

memory, breaks through a dusty

layer of saying and seeing and

Figure Hoop net (p. 48).
discovers what is unsaid and
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unseen. The perception of the reader is aimed at the understanding of the stories, which is

to say, of that which is not explicitly stated. In doing so, the reader is able to develop new

desires which might not have arisen if the novel was comprised solely of the written word.

Hence, we develop a desire to complete the story. At this point the picture comes into

play, pretending to demonstrate the missing component, and yet it does not in fact

complete the story. What occurs in Sebald's pictures is what Lacan describes with the

phenomenon of voyeurism: "What the voyeur is looking for and finds is merely a shadow,

a shadow behind the curtains. There he phantasies any magic of presence /". The reader

needs to fantasize to put the picture into the context of the story. Instead of directly

fulfilling what is not being said, seeing serves to challenge one's expectations.

Photography concerns an impression isolated from its meaning — it is an artifact of the

past which within the context of Sebald's framework serves to satisfy the needs of

imagination and fantasy, rather than to serve as an incontrovertible testimony.

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WORKS CITED

Attig, Matthias. Sprache und Wissen. Textuelle Formationen von Erinnerung und Gedächtnis.
Linguistische Studien zum Erzählen in Uwe Johnsons Jahrestagen. Berlin/Boston. Walter de Gruyter
GmbH. 2015.
Benjamin, Walter (1977d): Kleine Geschichte der Photographie, Gesammelte Schriften II.1, edited by
Rolf Tiedemann, Herrmann Schwepphäuser, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag. 1991. P. 368-385.

Boxer, Philipp. What might make translation difficult from a Lacanian reading to a Kleinian reading of
Freud. Lacanticles. May 29, 2015. https://www.lacanticles.com/2015/05/29/what-might-make-translation-
difficult-from-a-lacanian-reading-to-a-kleinian-reading-of-freud/ Assessed December 01, 2020

---. Über einige Motive bei Baudelaire, Gesammelte Schriften I., edited by Rolf Tiedemann, Herrmann
Schwepphäuser, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag. 1991. P. 605-653.

Lacan, Jacques. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalyses. The Seminar of Jaques Lacan. Book
XI. edited by Jacques-Alain Miller. New York/London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1978.
---. The signification of the Phallus. Écrits. London/Newyork: Tavistock/Routledge. 1977.

---. Die Objektbeziehung. Die drei Formen des Objektmangels. edited by Jacques-Alain Miller (1956-
1957). Translated by Hans-Dieter Gondek. Wien: Turia +Kant. 1994.

Scholz, Christian. But the written word is not a true document.Lise Patt, and Christel Dillbohner, editors.
Searching for Sebald. Photography after W.G. Sebald. Los Angeles. The Institute of Cultural Inquiry.
2007. P. 104-109.

Sebald, Winfried Georg. Die Augewanderten. Frankfurt am Main. Eichborn. 2001.

---. The Emigrants. Translated by Michael Hulse. Frankfurt am Main. Eichborn. 1997.

Steedman, Carolyn. Dust. New Brunswick, New Jersey. Rutgers University Press. 2001

White, Hayden. The Practical Past. Evanston. Northwestern University Press. 2014.

Zizek, Slavoj. Enjoy Your Symptom!: Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out. Abingdon:
Routledge, 2013. P.48
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