Trauma Narratives in Post-War and Postcolonial Fiction

Trauma Narratives in Post- war and Postcolonial legendTrauma Narratives in Post-War and Postcolonial metaphoralisationThere be wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.Laurel K. Hamilton, Mistrals KissThe distresstized soul finds no rest in trails of peace. Its forever questing for violence, for action, for the same combination of concomitantors which gave s encounter to it in the first place.Matthew S. WilliamsI. IntroductionFrom a hunting-gathering economy and communal property, societies pick up developed to todays market-oriented, profit-driven economies and privatization. In the span of history, the transitions and developments of nations are obdurate by its struggle for survival. These include the desire to fan out territories for raw materials and casing of power which have led to the wars and conflicts that we know from our history books.We now choke in an age of global economies, soaring-tech industries, cybe r technology, and an verit qualified(a) more intricate geopolitics. Modernity has caused a lot of execrable aside from its advantages. We have forward-looking in curing a number of diseases, replaced manual labor with machine-driven machines, revved up academic research and discovered alternative energy resources up to now we still face socio- semipolitical, economic, cultural and environmental issues today. These include demanding jobs but at a lower place average salaries, unmet social needs and services, political instability and even environmental disasters. These lead to civil unrest, rise of assorted nationalist and separatist movements and otherwise issue-specific mobilizations, and even armed resistance.There are in like manner intangible tears at play which contribute to humanitys dilemma. Traditional values, social constraints, taboos, inequalities, and the utilization of religion reinforce the contradictions experient by an individual. One should also musical accompaniment in mind the role of history. Stronger nations invade and occupy sm in aller and weaker ones to expand their influence and enforce them to be their subjects. A good example for this is the Spanish colonization of the Philippines and the historical events that followed. These unsettling births de deterrent exampleize people and poses great effects to their mentality.This theme go a personal manner explore the function of literature as a certification of combat injurytic experiences and as an embodiment of individual and collective retrospection. The flora of bathroom Updike, William Golding and F. Sionil Jos, a Filipino English-language writer, will be the focus of this research of post-war and postcolonial fictionalization. Their works can be read as manifestations of distress and demonstrate the psychological effects of historical and catastrophic events such(prenominal) as armed conflicts and the post-war, postcolonial condition as they are experience by t he characters in their novels.In addition, we will look at the authors style of composing in preserving memories of psychic annoying and suffering and how successful they are in representing traumatic experiences in fiction. using different literary theories, we will also try to explore some(prenominal) issues such as identity, social and gender roles and social classification among others. done reading these literary texts, we can hope to see more in the historical realm and uncover long forgotten issues of the historical and connector it to the present.My thesis is divided into several parts. The first part will get trauma and establish the existing theoretical bases of its studies in literature. here I shall de statusine how trauma is represented in literature and how it contains memories of pain and suffering and how it functions in its recollection. Trauma will be analyzed in this chapter as not creation a theoretically fixed-in-time phenomenon but rather unpredictab ly experienced by means of different contexts that reminds a traumatized individual of a atrocious experience.The next chapter is where I look at the thin line amid trauma and fiction. I shall recall the basic functions of literature and understand the substance of trauma in literature. There is that difficulty of articulating memories of a dark past and an overwhelming experience whether it is recent or long forgotten, and through writing fiction an individual is provided an opportunity to express it in a little obtrusive method instead of an intrusive one-to-one conversation. I shall also evaluate the healing function of writing trauma in fiction as an individual and a collective.The following chapter will be the door of the works of John Updike, an American writer, William Golding, an English writer, and Francisco Sionil Jos, a Filipino English-language writer. Here I will discuss the contexts of trauma in their works and attempt the themes in their works, as well as, the different literary elements that complete their full-page work that embody memories of a traumatic past such as memories of war, resistance, and other modes of violence.The last part will be the conclusion and synthesis of the significance of writing trauma narratives in fiction and the highlights of representation of memory and trauma.II. Theories of TraumaTheories of trauma are not bleak in the orbit of literary studies. In her introduction to Trauma Explorations in Memory, Cathy Caruth states that the issue of trauma is derived from different discourses which include psychiatry, psychoanalysis and sociology that addressed the questions after catastrophic wars (Caruth 3 1995). Today, there has been an even more increasing following in trauma as a research topic in literature. Works such as Laurie Vickroys Trauma and Survival in Contemporary Fiction and Debora Horvitzs Literary Trauma Sadism, Memory, and Sexual Violence in American Womens Fiction are some of the recent studie s.By 1980, trauma became a solid status of inquiry and became kn have as Post-Traumatic accentuate Disorder (PTSD) by the American Psychiatric Association (Caruth 3). This phenomenon included what the soldiers experienced after combat such as symptoms of shell shock, combat stress, slow up stress syndrome, and traumatic neurosis (Caruth 3). Due to its official recognition as a pathological classification, it provided means in diagnosing other reactions to ut virtually(a) events that affect the human psyche. These include not only the effects of contend in the battlefield or aftereffects of an environmental disaster, but also rape, babe abuse, and other violent situations (Caruth 3).In her master dissertation, Minczingerov menstruations out that traumatic experience fails to be integrated into the consciousness and continues to haunt the survivors later on through flash prickles, dreams and intrusive thoughts. (2) In the most general definition, Caruth defines trauma as an over whelming experience of sudden catastrophic events (Caruth 29 1996). She further states thatFrom Freuds early claims, in the Project for a Scientific Psychology, that a trauma consist of dickens scenesthe earlier (in pip-squeakhood) having sexual content but no meaning, the later (after puberty) having no sexual content but sexual meaningto his later claims, in Moses and Monotheism, that trauma occurs only after latency period, Freud seems to have been concerned with the way in which trauma is not a simple or wiz experience of events but that events, insofar as they are traumatic, assume their force precisely in their laic delay.(Caruth 9 1995)This brings us to Michelle Balaevs point in literary criticism on trauma in fiction in which she underlines the importance of the relationship between psychic trauma, memory and landscape. Her interest on the concept of trauma is not it existence a temporal but rather a spatial phenomenon since it is not just registered in one setting but rather experienced further and tends to surface in flashbacks, nightmares, and repetitive reenactments (Rodi-Risberg 2012).As a subject that involves the human psyche, it is desperate to discuss the contributions of Sigmund Freud to the field of trauma studies. Minczingerov points out thatHe is still a prominent figure at least in the cultural and literary studies of trauma (even though he is often dismissed in therapeutic and medical discourses), and also because this thesis draws upon some of his concepts, albeit, as it will be pointed out, in a slightly different way from Freuds intend usages (3).Freud was troubled about the soldiers who returned home after the First World War who displayed symptoms of what came to be known as shell shock (Minczingerov 3). He coined the term repetition compulsion which concluded his observation that a person who experienced an overwhelming situation such as war tend to be obsessed at reliving or reenacting the event.A. Running away as a defens e mechanism in Updikes hunt, Run more or less 1958, John Updike suffered an existential crisis, one that have been brewing for several years. He explained in his work Odd Jobs, Amid my new responsibilities, I felt fearful and desolate, foreseeing, young as I was, that I would die, and that the substance of the earth was, therefore, death. He was saved from this abyss by two writers, namely, Sren Kierkegaard (Danish existentialist writer) and Karl Barth (German theologian). out from self-aggrandizing answers to his religious and philosophical questions, both writers provided Updike the necessary tools to create his own theological and aesthetic vision which have influenced his literary writing, circling on matters of moral debate and goodness of man. And coney, Run tells us a story of a person dismission through this kind of conflict, his contradictions in life and how he deals with them.The central figure of the novel is Harry Rabbit Angstrom, 26-year-old, former high school b asketball MVP, who is confine in a failing marriage, and has a life full of frustration, dissatisfaction and weariness that results to his escapism and therefore hurting those nearly him. He is married to Janice Springer-Angstrom only because he got her with child(predicate) with Nelson, who is now a toddler. Wanting to escape, he abandons both Nelson and Janice who is already pregnant with their second child Rebecca June. He goes to his former coach Marty Tothero to ask help or steerage with his life. Instead, they go out to see girls and Rabbit meets Ruth, winding up together. part living with Ruth, Jack Eccles, a young local minister, tries to fix Rabbit and Janices marriage. At first, Rabbit was dismissive about the idea of going back to her but when he realizes she was going to labor, he leaves Ruth and rushes to the hospital. by and by seeing Janices condition, Rabbit sort of falls in be intimate with her again.Rabbit because becomes consumed with his carnal desire for Janice but she (after a 9-month pregnancy, organism left by Rabbit for another woman, and a hard labor) did not have the capability of having sex with him. It was that night when he wanted to discharge love with her but then she shoved him off telling him that she is not a whore. This frustration pushes him to walk away again. This time, making Janice even more miserable, view that Rabbit left for good. She continues her drinking and smoking habit but even worse this time. One day, she got so drunk that she drowns their baby, Rebecca, in the bathtub. Upon hearing the news, Rabbit goes back home. At the funeral, he tells Janice it was his fault. But at the end of the day, he lashes out and gets the blame on Janice. He runs away again, going back to Ruth. Apparently, Ruth is pregnant and Rabbit is the father. He is happy and he tells her he wants them to get married. But Ruth tells him that there will be zippo between him and her and the baby if he does not divorce his wife, Jani ce. He agrees to this term, then decides to go out and buy some food. On the way, he starts to head his decisions, the hard choice of leaving Janice for Ruth and the future of his son, Nelson. All these put him on so much pressure so he, as you may expect, runs away again.Rabbit Angstroms story does not demand much philosophizing. His leaving is an impulsive action to escape from being trapped in a net. To understand his life, we must look at the political events and other historical forces at that time, which he barely was aware of. through and through this method, we will be aware of the apparent themes in this novel. He was innate(p) in the thirties when critical historical events were happening and affected the multinational scene, mainly the great(p) Depression which was the best platform for other arena powers to invade weaker nations. When Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated as the president of the United States, he initiated the social eudaimonia program called New Dea l to combat the effects of and recover from the Great Depression. Employment rate skyrocketed due to Americas participation in the Second World War that resulted from the economic and political crisis. This has led to forcing most men to the combat field and women taking over mens jobs. Returning from the battlefield, men grew weary and women returned to their mostly boring domestic roles.Rabbit, being one of those who gave service during the war, came back home wanting to satisfy himself with all the pleasure he can get. But he feels incomplete and unsatiated which led him to seek for divine guidance that can light up his way or at least a human being he can look up to like his coach Tothero. He goes tire and weary of old age so he wants to shut up his younger days. This can be seen in the opening of the novel when he joins a group of young boys playing basketball and also his giving in to his sexual fantasies. However, Janice and Nelson plus his personal issues with his parents keep him anchored. This is why he always tries to run from everything, to taste bare(a)dom and find a new purpose in life. But while he runs away, everything catches up with him.Janice, who I consider a victim of her environment, is bound to an unpleasant fate. Getting pregnant before marriage was considered immoral during her younger days so she was laboured to marry Rabbit. However, their marriage somehow locks her down as well. Women were expected to play domestic roles and Janice, probably thinking of achieving greater things in life, became frustrated and bored resulting to her being alcoholic and a smoker. Moreover, the media influenced many housewives on the illusion of beauty. It should be noted that Barbie became a popular icon during that time and other historied women who were considered models of perfection. Ideal families were also portrayed on regular television shows which motivate women to struggle for a perfect household. Somehow, this fact pressured her too, asi de from Rabbits departure and living with another woman that led to her despair.Looking at the novel critically, we will realize that Rabbits actions are affiliated to his environment. It begs the question how he was raised by his parents and if he had a respectable childhood. His search for the divine, for someone he can look up to reveals the fact that he is yearning for parental love that his parents was probably not able to satisfy. A scene in the novel when Rabbit sneaks to his parents house and looks through the window, and describes how his parents take care of his son Nelson, means that there is inner of him a longing for affection. Yet he cannot go back to his childhood and put to work things happen the way he wants it to be. This creates a feeling of nothingness inside of him. However, given his freedom as an adult he is completely free to do anything. But with no one who can genuinely maneuver him will eventually lead to his downfall.