How to Walk Away from the Trauma Corner: A Deconstructive Analysis of Besser’s Man in the Corner and Birman’s How To Walk Away

Abstract

The present paper attempts to deconstruct two postmodern Australian Jewish novels to examine the chief social-psychological dimensions of the main characters: David, in Besser’s Man in the Corner (2016) and Otis, in Birman’s How to Walk Away (2015) and thus investigate their implications about contemporary Jewish identity within the ethnoreligious Australian Jewish context. The previous analyses of the texts have only been internet reviews focusing on the psychological dimension on its own. These reviews have not linked the texts to current Jewish identity, as attempted in this article. In addition, these attempts’ focus has been on several perspectives, not deconstructive. Therefore, this paper delves into the mystic depths of these novels inferring, through deconstruction, the Jewish Identity in the postmodern era. The analyses have been conducted in light of Breakwell’s Identity Process Theory (1986) and Derrida’s Différance through textual analysis that elicits the traces beyond binaries, rhetoric expressions, and semantic and morphosyntactic tell-tale textual moments. David and Otis pass different experiences and personal traumas that primarily influence their ability to decisions making and thus initially increasingly shrink inward. However, the later awakening by confessing the existing problems, renewal and pleading to God provides ways to walk away from these traumas. These solutions reflect the overall diverse attempts of the Australian Jews today to overcome their traumatic past by universalizing the experiences of suffering, by attempts to communicate with the self and the other and to -sometimes- return to God.