One of the things that surprised me while reading Exit Wounds was how good of a job Rutu Modan did in capturing modern day Israel. Even though this book turns out to be a love story the author excellently portrays the political turmoil in Israel. In very subtle ways she hints at some of the political issues in Israel. She shows how desensitized and accustomed Israelis have become to violence. Pages 46-50 are an excellent example of this nonchalant attitude towards death and the suicide bombings. Another example would be when Numi mentions that Koby’s father might have died in one of the attacks and Koby isn’t even sure of which one she’s talking about. In Exit Wounds, Modan also hints at illegal immigrant workers in Israel and the troubles that they have. The way that the owner of the stationary shop talks about the Filipino cleaning lady, Del, speaks volumes about the issues of immigrant workers. He says that Del probably didn’t even bother going to the hospital after the bombing because of her fear of the immigration police. Its quite disturbing how easily the Filipino cleaning woman switches with another and goes undetected. Another place in the book where Israeli political issues are brought up is when Numi and Koby visit Koby’s mother’s grave. The separation of the graves of Jews and non-Jews in the book speaks to the larger issue of segregation of Jews and non-Jews that can still be seen in Israeli society today. In the very back of the book there is an interview with Rutu Modan where she speaks of how she attempted to capture the reality of this separation between the Jews in Israel and the non-Jews. In my opinion her attempt was a success.
2 thoughts on “There’s More To This Love Story Than Boy Meets Girl”
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I agree that there’s so much more going on with Exit Wounds than appears at first. The cartoonish drawing style and blossoming love story disguise what at heart, I think, is a political novel. Underneath the surface material, there’s a strong indictment of Israel policies, which I hope to talk about more in class.
I think you definitely unveiled some of the more subsurface aspects of Exit Wounds in your post, and I especially liked your commentary on how the book portrays illegal immigrants and their treatment in Israel. I’m doing two pages from Exit Wounds for my tracing project, and one of the pages I traced was pg. 89: our first and only encounter with “Del” who turns out to actually be another woman named Nora. I found a few stylistics elements of the page that support your assertion that illegal immigrants in Israel are portrayed in the novel as interchangeable (perhaps even individuality-less?) and “that they have [trouble].” One obvious pieces of evidence is the black footprints across the bathroom floor that Nora is currently in the process of mopping. The fact that Modan choose to show Nora cleaning while the very thing she’s cleaning is being dirtied seems to point towards the idea that Nora’s world is in a perpetual state of disarray. One moment she’ll clean up a mess, and then the minute she turns around the mess is right back again. Furthermore, in both drawings where we see Nora’s entire body (the top panel and then the portrait in the bottom left-hand corner) she is looking down. Not just looking down, but her posture also gets more and more bent over. In effect, Nora is becoming physically shorter in comparison to the other people in the scene, perhaps a metaphor for her social status. And on one last note, in the top panel, both of the men in the bathroom are facing away from Nora, as if her presence hasn’t even been noticed. I’m not saying one of the guys should be talking to her, but I think there is a reason even in the smaller close up panel of their feet you can see both pairs of shoes facing away from her.