The Past in Austerlitz Case

The role of images in our daily lives is primarily to help us recall memories of the past. Throughout W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz, the narrator sprinkles dozens of photographs that the main character, Austerlitz, had taken previously. However, in the instances where he found himself without a camera, Austerlitz goes in depth to describe the moment with beautiful imagery that allows both the narrator and the reader to recreate the memory of that certain instant. These images given by Austerlitz leave the narrator and the reader to try and figure out their significance as a memory aid. As Austerlitz states, "pictures have a memory of their own and remember the roles that we had played in our former lives," allowing us to recognize the effect the images had on Austerlitz in his own words (Sebald, 182.) They aid in memory recollection--not only visual recollection, but the emotional aspect as well.

Throughout the novel, numerous pictures appear to help the reader understand the events occurring at certain moments. These are all taken by Austerlitz and given to the unnamed narrator after a meeting in late 1996 (7.) Each seem to have a certain memory attached to them as a snapshot of the past, taken to preserve what had once been. A peculiar tid-bit about Austerlitz, however, is that "it never seemed to [him] right to turn the viewfinder of my camera on people," indicating that the memories he tried to keep, the photographs, are more of what he had known, rather than who he had known (77.) Due to this unusual method, it is safe to assume that to Austerlitz, these settings and objects of which he photographs are more significant than the people he had met. Starting from the first page to the last, there are no photographs of the narrator, of Hilary, of Vera, of Maximilian, nor of Marie. But rather there are pictures of things such as "entwined roots of a chestnut tree clinging to a steep slope, through which, Vera had told me, I liked to climb as a child" (162.) Why does Austerlitz choose to include a picture of these roots and not of somebody as significant as Vera? Morality aside, it seems that Austerlitz can link this image of entwined roots to a specific memory: climbing them as a child, a detail of his personality of the past. As with Vera, or any other person, there exist too many memories to capture in single photograph, which is perhaps the answer as to leaving out personal portraits from his collection. Supporting evidence of this idea can be seen with the picture of the Fitzpatricks, Gerald's family, which shows five characters by face (86.) Having only been with them for a little while, the lone memory connected with them is Andromeda Lodge, which is better depicted in another, human-lacking picture (83.) Here lies a picture of people, a rarity in the novel, but connected weakly only with a memory better served by a different photograph.

However, the two seemingly most important photographs are in fact not taken by Austerlitz, but given to him from his mother. Vera, his mother's dear friend, stumbles upon them by chance after picking up a novel by Honoré de Balzac. One of these happens to be of "the stage of a provincial theater...where Agáta sometimes performed," (181) but this photograph does not actually depict her. The fact that Agáta is missing from the picture indicates that it was not saved in order to help Austerlitz remember her, but rather to help him remember the past. She left it in order to preserve the memory of their life: not only hers, but Austerlitz's as well. A reminder of a life where he would "lay with [his] eyes wide open in the dark... waiting for Agáta to come home... waiting for her to come into the room at last and sit down beside [him], enveloped by a strange theatrical odor" (161.) The theater helps evoke memories of the past; first by making sure that Austerlitz would know of his mother's profession, secondly in hopes that Austerlitz would be able to link this part of his life--waiting for his mother, supporting her with theater--with who he had become today. Unfortunately for the readers and the narrator, Austerlitz seemingly throws this photograph to the side and instead

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