Captions as Suturing in Hybrid Memoirs

Abstract

This essay studies the role that captions play in the interaction between photographs and text in hybrid memoirs. Rarely studied, captions can nevertheless be seen as fundamental transitory spaces where visual information and textual information are first confronted with each other before further connections can possibly be established by the main text. But even if captions can sometimes be seen as “secondary text,” offering basic and factual information about the photographs they are attached to, they can also have their own original narrative function. In what W. J. T. Mitchell calls the “suturing of discourse and representation,” captions may challenge readers’ or viewers’ expectations, especially in an autobiographical context where their main purpose is normally to confirm and enhance the referential content of the photograph.