Trauma and Genre in the Contemporary South African Novel

Abstract

IntroductionIn SPITE OF THE GREAT POPULARITY of works o f Cathy Caruth,1 who seems to be jumping easily across disciplinary boundaries and providing an attractive, interpretative cultural model of trauma concept for our (post-)modern times, there have also been critical voices which point out sloppiness2 of her argumentation and fact that, in trauma theory, there is an unresolved conflict between claim that meaning of a event is forever postponed (latent) and therefore elusive, and conviction that there is a possibility of healing by retelling of one's story, by narration. This conflict in modern trauma theory a parallel in literary theory's observation that postmodern literature is obviously characterized by paradoxical tension between impossibility of representing reality, of getting hold of truth, on one hand, and ongoing attempts to do it nevertheless, on other. Although postmodern authors claim that it is impossible to know what reality is like, they keep writing and reflecting about this impossibility and, in this way, undermine or contradict their own assumptions.From standpoint of practical psychotherapy, Caruth' s approach betrays a characteristic flaw: if trauma is an 'unclaimed experience', and if past keeps returning 'literally', as Caruth insists,3 and is not 'represented' in a symbolic form, there is no way of escaping from this dilemma, and there would be no way of healing.A possible solution to this problem lies in distinction between different forms that 'recollection' of past can take. It is obviously important to differentiate between traumatic - Caruth' s 'unclaimed experience' - on one hand, and memory, on other.4 According to psychoanalysis, traumatized patient's task is to 'translate' memory into narrative memory with help of an empathie listener, and, by doing so, reclaim formerly 'unclaimed' experience.5The difference between memory and narrative memory lies in degree of consciousness and control with which event can be recollected. Flashbacks or nightmares are unrecalled and unwanted intrusions of past into present, and they may be triggered automatically by sights, sounds, smells, or similar situations. They take possession of traumatized person and hold her/him under control. Narrative memory is conscious attempt of 're-lating' (the double meaning of word is intended here) events, casting them in form of a story that (in most cases) a beginning, a middle, and an ending. In psychotherapy, this is done by Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET),6 or Testimony Therapy (TT),7 for example. The patients are encouraged to relate their experiences in a secure environment and to an empathie listener. In this way, they are enabled to make sense of their experiences by telling a story, and these narratives are used to rebuild individual's shattered sense of identity and meaning.8In psychotherapy, then, creation of life-narratives - and storytelling in general - is a precondition for patient's 'recovery'. The phrase 'coming to terms with past' is an apt description of what is at stake here, because it is already expressive of fact that this 'recovery' is achieved by putting one's experience into words, by telling a story. As Crossley emphasized, human psychology an essentially narrative structure.9 To put it in words of Herman: the victim must be helped to speak horrifying truth of her past - to speak of unspeakable.10 This truth, then, has not only a personal therapeutic but a public or collective value as well.11In what follows, however, we are dealing not so much with traumatized persons taken from real life as with fictional creations and aesthetic structures. What holds true with regard to a traumatized individual is hardly applicable to writing of a novel and novel as a narrative genre. …