The Carnival as a Key to a Multimodal Reading of Tunnels – A Graphic Novel by Rutu Modan

Abstract

The article presents a multimodal reading of Tunnels – a graphic novel by Israeli author Rutu Modan, informed by the concept of the carnival as presented by Mikhail Bakhtin. Using this concept, it observes the role of literature in contemporary local life and society. The work is examined in view of the graphic novel genre, with emphasis on carnivalesque manifestations of man and space, chronotopes and vicissitudes of fate, and presents the carnivalesque writing as a way of coping with a chaotic reality.