The Power of First-Person Omniscient Narration in “The Many Death’s of Laila Starr”
The multimodal nature of comics—in which images & text always interact in subjective, complex ways—creates unique opportunities for experimental narration. The Many Deaths of Laila Starr #3, in which the story is narrated by a dying cigarette, is an excellent example. 1/12
Again similar to novels, narration in a comic can take various perspectives & be various degrees of omniscient. The cigarette’s narration in Laila Starr is first-person omniscient. Its perspective is sometimes limited by proximity to Laila, but it also narrates backstories of other characters. 3/12
The cigarette’s “voice” is similar to the third-person omniscient narration used throughout the series. But the cigarette is personified as a character, with its own embodied emotions. It discusses the tactile sensation of living next to Laila’s heart and says it might be falling in love. 4/12
The personification of the cigarette offers a new window on the life and actions of Laila and Darius. Unlike the third-person omniscient narrator, this first-person narrator is emotionally and physically affected by what Laila and Darius think and feel. 5/12
The cigarette also inhabits an inherently tragic subject position. It can’t speak to the characters within the story and its mobility and existence are limited by what the humans choose to do with it. When Laila lights the cigarette, she gives it new life but also ensures its rapid demise. 6/12
First-person narration often aligns the reader more closely with the narrator. The cigarette’s inherent tragedy enhances this. The cigarette is like us: it indulgently observes romantic tragedies but despite its knowledge of narrative foreshadowing, it can’t affect or change the story. 7/12
The cigarette’s brief & tragic yet bright-burning existence is also used as a metaphor for young lives on the cusp of change. Darius is at a turning point and so is Laila/the spirit of Death inhabiting Laila. But unlike the cigarette (or the reader), they can choose what happens next. 8/12
These choices are informed by the sense of intimacy that the cigarette enables, both through its emotional narration and through its physical properties as it passes between the fingers and lips of Darius and Laila, their breath and saliva intermingling on the filter. 9/12
This intimacy is both emphasized and undercut by one of the cigarette’s final lines: “I will go away knowing that the closest Death got to this young man in this lifetime was to share a cigarette with him.” Clearly, sharing a cigarette is not the same as truly knowing someone. 10/12
In the end, Darius rejects the cigarette and Laila chooses to die with it; after Darius leaves the party, Laila dies (again) in a fire set by a smouldering cigarette. Yet here, as throughout the series, life & death are not absolutes or binaries. Each of Laila’s deaths protects Darius’ life. 11/12
The cigarette becomes symbolic of this interplay & inversion. Though its agency seems limited, it’s pivotal in shaping lives. Similarly, the reader’s agency is limited but enhanced by these narrative techniques and the comics form, which allow subjective interpretations of a multimodal story. 12/12