Résumé
The philosophical debate that defines art as mimesis leads us to interpret fiction as reality disguised in beautiful imagery and hyperboles. Indeed, the mimetic aspect of literature has captured and immortalized life in different ways through fiction. From George Orwell’s dystopian prose that denounces totalitarian regimes, to postcolonial writings from Chinua Achebe that decry the lingering effects of colonization, fiction has always effectively and efficiently “turned blood into ink” as T.S Eliot put it. It has managed to capture the essence of life and transcribe it into words. While many fictional narratives depict things that happened or may happen in a near future, Alan Moore’s comic book series Watchmen tackles what may had happened to warn the reader about the danger of history repeating itself as well as the idea of bestowing power in the wrong hands. For this reason, Moore creates a uchronic setting that puts his characters in an alternate reality in which the United States of America won the war against Vietnam. Moreover, Moore’s masked superhero vigilantes in Watchmen are far from being positive figures. On the contrary, they appear ethically ambiguous or utterly corrupt. Every superhero in Watchmen rests on a net of intertextual references that refer to previous comic book heroes, villains, or even real life political and historical figures. This renders it a work of fiction that criticizes itself in a metatextual fashion. In this regard, Moore posits a “comic about comics” type of narrative to remind people of the link between fiction and reality as well as how intertwined both of them can be. Using Gérard Genette’s concept of transtextuality, this presentation aims to discuss “the textual transcendence of the text” as Genette claims in Moore’s Watchmen. In this respect, this presentation will explore the ways in which Alan Moore’s Watchmen redefines the superhero genre as a “meditation upon power” through the use of transtextual techniques.