Exhuming Loss by Layla Renshaw

Author:Layla Renshaw [Renshaw, Layla]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781611320428
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2011-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

CARDBOARD FATHERS: MUTED pHOTOGRAPHS AND MEMENTOES IN THE HOME

Not all relatives of the dead had access to, or an awareness of, photographic images of the dead. For those who did, it is interesting to consider how the condition of atomisation described in the previous chapters shaped the use of photographs and mementoes within the homes of the Republicans. The absence of detailed knowledge surrounding the biography of the father, the taboo around his political activities or the reason for his death, and the impossibility of mourning openly, all suggested a muted or censored use of photographs in the home. It is therefore important to ask whether the photo was talked about and used as a prop to elicit or structure narratives about the dead. My strong impression is that the portrait photograph of the father was not used in such an active mourning or transmission of memory in the majority of Republican homes in my field sites. I had assumed prior to my fieldwork that the discussion of photographs and mementoes in the family home would be fertile ground for discussion, but my questions on the father’s photograph elicited limited, even bewildered responses. There was a high degree of uniformity in the way my elderly informants described their early memories of the practices surrounding those photographs. Relatives would point it out to children from a very young age by simply saying “That is your father,” or prompting them to identify him by asking “Do you know who that is?” Several informants recalled the photograph as being in the salon or lounge, or above the dining table, which is often in the salon in smaller village homes. When I pressed for details over strategies of display or embellishment, the response was that they could recall “nothing special.” The photograph was visible but not signalled, and only the inner circle of family or friends would make reference to it in front of the child. The photograph served to refute the “fatherless” state of the family, as material evidence of the fact that he had once existed. Further verbal elaboration was dangerous under Franco, and the materiality of the photograph was safely wordless, allowing it to be visually displayed but never verbally elaborated upon. The significance of these photographs was to assert the family’s legitimacy, combating the “sin” of fatherlessness, rather than to elicit narratives or a detailed transmission of memory.

The tangible presence yet limited power of photographs to transmit memory in the absence of verbal elucidation is brilliantly communicated by an open letter written by Manuel Martínez Hinchado, the son of a murdered Republican, as part of the memory campaign in Extremadura. He dedicates it to a “cardboard father” and describes his generation of the bereaved children of Republicans as “those of us with cardboard fathers.” In the absence of verbalised memories or narratives of his father’s life, his characterisation of a “cardboard” father emphasises the dissatisfying two-dimensionality of the photograph and is suggestive of the photograph’s function as a place marker or token.

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