Ice Haven seems to be a culmination of a lot of the Bakhtinian terms we have been analyzing in class, specifically polyphony. Basically, this means that the narrator is taking a backseat and removing their potential biases from the narrative. Instead, the work consists of lots of different perspectives from a litany of different characters with their own narrative weight. In Ice Haven, the switching between the various perspectives of the townsfolk does so in a particularly interesting way, by completely changing the art style when the author switches characters. In fact, the entire book seems to be a series of comic strips put together by different artists to form a consistent story. By doing this, we become immersed in the characters’ unique narrative storyline. A prime example of polyphony comes in Violet’s first chapter ‘Seventeen’, where we see her go about her day through high school. It’s the typical teenage stuff, going to school and thinking about her boyfriend, but the chapter is intercut with pages from her diary. Instead of speech bubbles juxtaposed with illustrations, the pages are in a pink notebook, written with a pen, giving insight into Violet’s deep thoughts, rather than relying on what she wants to say.
Another Bahktian term that could apply to Ice Haven is the concept of Metonymy, which is used to imply meaning on an object. Sometimes this is also used to represent a common concept. This brings us to the Ames couple, a husband and wife detective duo with marital problems. When Mr. Ames is investigating the townspeople in relation to the disappearance of David Goldberg, he notices an article of clothing at Officer Kaufman’s house which he says looks like the same kind his wife wears. In another sequence, we see Kaufman buying condoms at the convenience store. Although there may be some leaps in judgment, the combination of the lie about what Mrs. Ames had for dinner, the officer buying condoms, and Mrs. Ames’s underwear being found at Kaufman’s house, all of these are Metonymy signs of an affair. Although these symbols don’t mean much on their own, the context that they are in can lead us to infer that something much darker is going on beneath the surface, namely, an affair.
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