Paratexts

The Tool Kit in Reading Autobiography uses the term paratext to refer to all forms of material inside a book. This includes the pictures on the outside cover, the preface, publishing info, notes, pictures, letters, poems, references, or any material contained in or on a book. Smith and Watson challenge the reader to question the rhetorical purpose of paratextual material in all of its various forms.

Claudia Rankine’s take a very peculiar approach to notions of self-life writing in her book Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. This autobiographical text is littered with images, poems, diagrams, random dialogue, labels, symbols, advertisements, flyers, and a slue of other meaningful forms of paratexts. Rankine uses a blank page with a picture on a television set to serve as a transition or break between the wide spectrum of issues she addresses in her epistemological approach to understanding human nature and what we dubbed the ‘crisis of relationality’ in class. The television with static on the screen can be read in a number of symbolic ways. Perhaps it connotes ambivalence in contemporary society, or some societal or cultural shortcoming that blocks people from seeing truth or whatever it is they are after. The static also exudes a sense of emptiness, a void where images should be. This might be her way of expressing that the essence of modern society is a mere shell of what it used to be. Smith and Watson claim that paratexts “comprise a threshold that can dramatically affect its [a text’s] interpretation and reception by variously situated reading communities” (RA 100). They go on to suggest that paratexts are received by various audiences and solicit a number of different responses based on the demographic orientation of individual readers. Paratextual images can grab the readers eye and evoke certain reactions that my affect the way the reader perceives the inherent message of the paratext item.

Personal Take:

My grandmother is a ‘scrap-booker’. Oh yes, she is obsessed with splicing newspaper articles, photos, leaves, and whatever she can fit in between the bindings of her scrapbooks. She has a cook-book scrapbook, several family album scrapbooks, and a stout collection of other types of scrapbooks that I will probably never look at. However, there was one scrapbook that caught my eye and actually influenced my life much more than a scrapbook should be able to. She has a scrapbook dedicated to Bear Bryant that I used to spend hours looking at. Bear Bryant was the head foot ball coach at Alabama and is arguably the most prolific iconic figures associated with college football. The black and white checked hat he used to wear has become synonymous with the Crimson Tide’s mascot or school logo. During his 25 year tenure he amassed six national championships and thirteen conference championships. My Crammy’s scrapbook had newspaper articles, photos, magazine articles, signed memorabilia, and an extensive collection of other neat oddities about Bear Bryant and his legendary identity as one of the greatest coaches to have ever paced the sidelines. I would never pull for Alabama if I had not been exposed to the paratexts of this scrapbook. College football is a big part of my life and means a lot to me. It truly influences how I live my life, and thus, believe it or not, the paratext of some old scrapbook sitting in a closet in Birmingham Alabama has affected my agency via which teams I pull for.

***I have to clarify that I am a Carolina fan thru and thru—GO COCKS!!!—however, I pull for Bama every game they play except when they play the Gamecocks, and when football means as much as it does to me, that is saying something.

-Joe Fleming