Date of Award
5-10-2018
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Heritage Studies, Ph.D.
First Advisor
Deborah Chappel-Traylor
Committee Members
Brady Banta; Lauri Umansky
Call Number
LD251.A566d 2018 F58
Abstract
This dissertation is a two-part project. In the first half memoir is defined as “a book understood by its author, its publisher, and its readers to be a factual account of the author’s life.” The genre of memoir contributes to the historical understanding of an event or period, and this study examines the memoir in relation to how it affects both history and heritage. The heritage of a community or knowledge of an event is largely shaped by what is written or has been passed orally from generation to generation. This dissertation highlights how memoirs provide a perspective of an event often previously unknown. Within this study, the ability of the genre to preserve the past, humanize that past, and provide information different from the accepted narrative is explored. African American slave and prison narratives exemplify how minority memoirs provide details unavailable from other resources. These memoirs are then studied alongside those of the West Memphis Three, which exemplify subaltern narratives. A subaltern is defined by Gramsci as A person of low rank or group of people in a particular society suffering under hegemonic domination of a ruling class that denies them the basic rights of participation in the making of local history and culture as active participants in the making of local history and culture as active individuals of the same nation. This project also employs Colonial and Post-Colonial Theory to examine issues of subalternity, arguing that the West Memphis Three themselves are subalterns. Remaining sections of this dissertation focus on the “Satanic Panic” surrounding the trials; and note how the genre is wielded as a “weapon” against both literal and figurative incarceration. The project then culminates with a synopsis that the memoirs of the West Memphis Three contribute to our historical understanding of the case, and the shaping of the cases’ heritage as well.
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Fitzgerald, Haley Wimpy, "Memoirs of the West Memphis Three: History, Heritage, and Literature" (2018). Student Theses and Dissertations. 513.
https://arch.astate.edu/all-etd/513
