Abstract
Exploring Jewish resistance in relation to the Holocaust has become one major topic widely discussed in the Holocaust novels written by the second or third generations of Holocaust survivors. The fact that these writers primarily have no direct experience with the event somewhat shows that the paramount effects of the tragedy expand generations and leave trauma that lingers. To cope with the narration of atrocities, resistance strategy is often employed by the Holocaust writers and to a certain point has a function to represent the struggle of the survivors. Joseph Skibell as the third-generation writer deploys a strategy of spatial movement as a coping mechanism and resistance against atrocities in his magical realist novel A Blessing on the Moon. Using Sara Upstone�s spatial politics perspective, this research aims to investigate the spatial movement performed by the main character and to explain how it produces the resistance strategy. In doing so, it will also further examine the scale and characteristics of various spatial locations used in the novel as a means of resistance. As it goes along, the issue of trauma and identity of the Holocaust survivors and their descendants is also explained.
Highlights
With the span of merely 4 years, approximately 6 million European Jews were murdered during the Shoah (Harvey, 2002), caused the shrunk of the European Jews population, and left the rest to flee the Europe
Literary data that contain the description of spatial locations and spatial movement are gathered and are analyzed critically based on the assumptions of spatial politics theory proposed by Sara Upstone
The analysis of the characteristics is used to reveal to what extent spatial movement performs its part as a resistance strategy for the main character which further explains how discussion of spatial locations and movement are crucial for issues related to the issues of trauma and identity for the Holocaust survivors and their descendants
Summary
With the span of merely 4 years, approximately 6 million European Jews were murdered during the Shoah (Harvey, 2002), caused the shrunk of the European Jews population, and left the rest to flee the Europe. Some of the survivors came to the United States, continued to live and have made into their second and third generations. Some of the second and third generation descendants mark their way as the Holocaust writers, attempting to channel the trauma of the memory which they have not experienced per se. There is a significant difference on how the older and younger generations of Holocaust writers narrate their memory on the tragedy. Joseph Skibell as a representation of the third generation departs from historical realism, a genre generally employed by mainly older authors, to narrate the tragedy. Spatial movement as a resistance strategy in a holocaust novel A Blessing on the
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