Partial Cognizance and Delayed Inscription in Edgar Allan Poe’s Discourse of Trauma

Abstract

This article tackles fictional renderings of the mechanics of trauma. The analysis is dedicated to the question of what a trauma narrative is and how the subject of/ in trauma is constituted. I begin with the assumption that what we are looking for in a literary work of art is not simply its meaning but the way in which that meaning is produced. All in all, I argue that in disaster zones, defined by the occurrence of the unspeakable, the signifying chain is interrupted, broken. What remains are disconnected things, events, images, and words: thoughts without a thinker, as Wilfred Bion would say. Repression is not possible, since it depends on the signifiers of an inscription, which is impossible in this case. Whereas the repressed unconscious can be defined, with Lacan, as the memory of what we forget, what we are dealing with in the case of catastrophes is a memory of what cannot be forgotten. Any effort to repair this hole in the continuity of the linguistic fabric reveals these creases, despite any attempt at mending. They are the bearers of truth: a-letheia.