Pomiędzy faktem a fikcją – reportaż z Operacji „Iracka Wolność”
Between Fact and Fiction – a Documentary “Operation Iraqi Freedom”

Author(s): Anna Samborowska
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: mimesis; Iraq; trauma; reportage; violence;
Summary/Abstract: Presenting facts in the most faithful way possible deprives the history of emotions, colours and turns it into a bare report. According to the principles set by New Journalism, a trend that introduced the use of literary techniques in journalistic texts, a press article should evoke in the recipient as strong an experience as possible, thanks to which s/he will be able to feel the events described, even if the price is the loss of their status of “facts”. The aim of the article is an attempt to demonstrate the way in which David Finkel, a war correspondent who witnessed the implementation of “Operation Iraqi Freedom”, builds a narration describing difficult, violent events; how he shapes, through appropriate rhetoric, the reactions of readers to the content which they receive. The methodological background of the article has been built with reference to Paul Ricoeur’s triple mimesis concept, and an additional tool for analyzing trauma in literature are the results of research by Richard McNally and Joshua Pedersen. With the aid of the aforementioned theoretical tools it is possible to show the links between the rhetoric used in the narration and the horizon of the contemporary receiver, which stimulate the reader’s experience.

• Details
• Contents