A Narrative of Crisis: Nancy Emerson's Diary and Healing through Writing

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Nancy Emerson, a middle-class white woman who lived with her brother's family in Augusta County, Virginia, kept a diary intermittently between May 1862 and November 1864. Emerson's diary can be defined as a narrative of crisis, generated to respond to, reduce, contain, and mitigate trauma due to the potential physical and psychological threat of the American Civil War. The narrative construction of traumatic experiences is a form of purification and catharsis, allowing Emerson to experience the stages of recovery by regaining a sense of community and establishing safety through writing, attending prayer meetings, reporting news, remembrance of and mourning for the dead, and Christian resignation. By combining psychiatric, literary, and historical approaches, this study offers contextualization of Emerson's narration, representation, and writing about physical and psychological crisis as a process of working through and recovery.