Photographic Delial in Danielewski’s and Zampano’s "House of Leaves"

It is difficult to argue against the assertion that Will Navidson is subject to incredible hardship and internal struggle in House of Leaves. Assaulted in his home by a force that defies reason, Navidson watches helplessly as his home consumes both his friends and family alike. In spite of this nightmarish scenario, one of Navidson’s greatest struggles predates the calamity which occurs at Ash Tree Lane. For Navidson, the girl he names Delial is much more than a mere photograph, she is an experience that transcends the boundaries of her medium—as photograph and plot element—for both her photographer and the reader.

For the world outside of Navidson, Delial exists as prize-winning photograph capturing a starving Sudanese girl stalked by a vulture (394). She exists as a "just the photo" that has made her, in the eyes of the world, the martyr for African famine (391). The meaning of her picture has transcended what it intrinsically is—no longer is it the photograph of a starving girl, but is representative of the plight of a starving people.

Similarly, for Navidson, her importance exists outside of the picture he has captured. Where Delial transcendently exists as the face of famine for the world, she exists as remorse for Navidson. His struggles come not from the content of the photograph, but, in his actions prior and after that captured moment. He admits that it is not the photo he dwells on, "but who she was before one-sixtieth of a second sliced her out of thin air" (392). Though hopelessly away from any possible assistance, he still feels responsible for not treating her as a girl to be saved, but as a picture to be captured (393). This remorse is seen when he reveals in his letter to Karen that, "I miss Delial, I miss the man I thought I was before I met her, the man who would have saved her, who would have done something, who would have been Tom" (393). Delial is symbol of a survivor’s guilt (characterized by a feeling of unworthiness relative to the perished) that Navidson feels after Tom perishes saving Daisy. For Navidson and for those who have seen his photograph, Delial’s meaning transcends her existence as photographic record—she is a photograph, but she is also both micro (for Navidson) and macro (for the world) representations of emotional plight.

Similarly, the Delial photograph has extended implications for the reader as well, but rather then spanning from a photograph into the world of House of Leaves, it spans from the House of Leaves into the reader’s reality. One of the most chilling aspects of the work is how it is able to encroach beyond its own narrative universe into the ‘real world’. For the reader, Delial’s photograph exists as a bridge between these two worlds as it does for Navidson (bridging Delial with to his remorse for Tom). This bridge is tantalizingly presented to the reader when editor notes that Delial "is clearly based on Kevin Carter’s 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a vulture prettying on a tiny Sudanese girl"¹ (368). Since Kevin Carter actually won the Pulitzer in 1994 for his work, is the editor a part of the reader’s realm? Yet, the entire situation is ambiguous; the editor’s statement that "pages of text vanished form the manuscript supplied by Mr. Truant" imply they exist in the same reality (376). Are the editor and Truant ‘real’ with Zampano’s work as fiction? Is the girl in Carter’s work Delial? The layers of narrative dissolve the frame between reality and the novel.

What makes the Navidon’s experience at The House so disturbing for him is that such a perversion of reality exists. It is unexplainable and unknown, yet it is that which draws him to it, causes him to search within it for some explanation. Through Delial, a similar apprehension occurs when the novel begins to step out of its pages—implications are that if some parts of the story are real, then which other parts may possibly be real as well? The reader’s drive to solve these unanswered question parallels Navidson’s strive to explore the unknown (of the House), and likewise causes the reader to more thoroughly explore their own unknown (of the novel) for concrete answers.