The graphic novel as a basis for the development of active empathy:

Mediation of trauma and alienation in Halfdan Pisket’s Dansker trilogy

Abstract

Traumatic experiences are alienating to the person who experiences them, and one can therefore assume that they must be presented as alienating for the reader – if the reader is to gain insight into what it means to live with trauma. This article examines which structural, visual and verbal devices the cartoonist Halfdan Pisket uses in the Dansker-trilogy, so as to portray his father’s traumas from war and flight from the conflict between Turks and Armenians, and from a subsequent life as a criminal and drug-addicted migrant worker in Denmark. In particular, the article focuses on how the trilogy can contribute to the reader developing what can be called active empathy – that is, empathy that not only creates identification between reader and character, but also makes the reader responsible and makes visible their role in maintaining the social forces that affect the main character of the trilogy.