The Unbribable Witness

Image, Word, and Testimony of Crimes against Humanity in Mark Twain’s King Leopold’s Soliloquy (1905)

Bibliographic Data

ID12966880
AuthorsNora Nunn (Bridge University, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume12
Issue2
Pages84-106
Publication date2018-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGenocide Studies and Prevention (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1911-0359 • E-ISSN: 1911-9933
PublisherInternational Association of Genocide Scholars (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.5038/1911-9933.12.2.1525
OpenAlexW2897959876
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited21

In the creation of King Leopold’s Soliloquy, a textured, visually irrefutable, and darkly satirical account of crimes against humanity in the Belgian Congo Free State, Mark Twain aimed to evoke his Euro-American audience’s empathy by activating their imaginations and inaugurating political reform. Informed by the work of cultural and literary critics such as Roland Barthes, this paper considers how the visual imagery in Twain’s text engender questions about fact, testimony, and witnessing in the realm of human rights and collective violence—both in the Congo Free State and, indirectly, in the United States. I ultimately argue that the relation (or dissonance) of visual imagery to written text in this relatively unknown and understudied work by Twain yields vital implications for scholars of genocide

Aesthetics · Art · Crimes against humanity · Genocide · Humanity · International law · Literature · Political science · Politics · Realm · Relation (database · Sociology · Soliloquy · State (computer science · War crime · Witness · American Literature and Humor Studies · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · History · Law · Modern American Literature Studies

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