Browsing by Subject "Psychic trauma in literature"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    “Be Again”: Exploring the Trauma of Separation through the Physical in Krapp’s Last Tape
    (2017) Woodruff, Carolyn; Sherman, Debora
    This essay deals with one of Samuel Beckett’s more narrative short plays, Krapp’s Last Tape. While many theorists have delved into the idea that Beckett’s plays belie a certain amount of difficulty and struggle when it comes to the attempt to narrativize, but this essay explores the ways in which this relates to the topics of psychoanalytic trauma, and extends this to a treatment of the body in the play. Drawing primarily from Cathy Caruth’s interpretations of Sigmund Freud’s writings on trauma in her work, Unclaimed Experience, and from Dominick LaCapra’s work with trauma in his article “Trauma, Absence, Loss,” I move towards understanding Krapp’s struggles with narrativity as a form of structural trauma experienced as the trauma of a lack of unity within his life and within his conception of his life story. Krapp’s continual re-narration of his life in the form of the tapes thus becomes understood as a physical representation of this trauma, which extends to the body as it is enacted on the stage. Moving from an understanding of the trauma present in the play, I work towards understanding how the movements of Krapp’s body onstage also constitute and represent this trauma, particularly the inherently repetitious nature of trauma. From this analysis, a new interpretation of the ending of the play emerges: that in his final confrontation with his past, Krapp comes to a sort of acceptance of death, which is a site of both extreme separation, but also a kind of resolution of this fear through the unity in finality.
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    Exploring the Function of Rapid Truthing in Phil Klay's Redeployment
    (2017) Witte, Nicole; Pryor, Jaclyn I.
    My thesis examines the ways in which Phil Klay’s Redeployment circumvents direct description of trauma and instead participates in “rapid-truthing.” Through a close reading of three of his stories, I examine how rapid-truthing functions through the inclusion of humor—most specifically gallows humor, narrative silence, and lack of closure. The stories are “After Action Report,” “War Stories,” and “Frago” and, in each, I interrogate a small handful of scenes to demonstrate his incorporation of rapid-truthing through these three narrative tools. I argue that Klay’s collection as a whole is a form of rapid-truthing in and of itself in addition to the rapid-truthing functioning within each of his stories; he must capture eight years worth of emotion in less than three hundred pages. In these three hundred pages, I argue that Klay’s decision to write about the War in Iraq through twelve distinct voices demonstrates that the experience of war is not individualistic, while simultaneously demonstrating that trauma is inherently plural.
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    Narrating Trauma in Elizabeth Bowen's 'The House in Paris'
    (2012) Kristal-Ragsdale, Glynis; Mohan, Rajeswari
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    Post-mémoire dans l'Algérie post-coloniale : Représentations du traumatisme intergénérationnel et de l'identité chez Samir Toumi et Leïla Sebbar
    (2019) Soto-Canetti, Gabriela; Anyinefa, Koffi, 1959-
    L’histoire violente de l’Algérie a toujours été une source de traumatisme chez les générations qui ont vu le jour après l’indépendance du pays en 1962. On peut en trouver l'évidence dans les textes publiés après cette date aussi bien en Algérie qu'en France. Les représentations du traumatisme dans ces textes dépendent de la manière dont les protagonistes ont gardé la mémoire de cette histoire. Cette thèse offre une étude détaillée de deux textes, L’Effacement de Samir Toumi et Parle mon fils parle à ta mère de Leïla Sebbar, pour explorer les effets du traumatisme chez la deuxième génération de l’Algérie post-coloniale. Ces représentations révèlent que c’est à travers les récits des parents, qui ont vécu les événements traumatiques, que le traumatisme est transféré aux enfants qui vont, à leur tour, le porter en eux. C'est ce que j'appelle post-mémoire à la suite de Marianne Hirsch.
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