My father's belt

Mikhail Bakhtin (1941) asserts that the literary novel is a prime example of heteroglossia—the novel’s discourse comprises diverse voices that are conscious imitations, making writing an act of ‘impersonation’. Margaret Gibson (2008) asserts that ‘impersonation’ is part of the grieving process where we liken ourselves to lost loved ones, whether through genetic or mimetic means, constructing ourselves as ‘living crypts’. Reflecting on both the characterisation of my father in my novel The Apology (2018) and my grieving process after his death, this research asks: How can a semi-autobiographical comic draw connections between writing practice and grief as analogous acts of impersonation? ‘My Father’s Belt’ is a one-page autographic (autobiographical comic; Whitlock 2006) that embodies and explicates a theoretical correspondence between Bakhtin’s heteroglossia and Gibson’s mimetic impersonation. The comic uses complementing visual and verbal texts to depict a fictitious dialogue between myself and my deceased father. This dialogue interrogates my novel’s representation of his physical abuse with a leather belt when I was a child, and my wearing of his belt after his death. ‘My Father’s Belt’ innovatively combines existing theory and creative practice to contribute to the creative writing discipline and grief studies. The work correlates the heteroglossic qualities of novel characterisation with mimetic impersonation as part of the grieving process, thereby provoking new understandings of both phenomena.