Untwine

Abstract

In her novel Untwine, Edwidge Danticat uses Giselle’s trauma to help readers understand the value of reflecting on past memories. Giselle’s trauma positioned her to orient, disorient, and reorient to find ways of healing and to understand her identities. To expand on what it means to orient, disorient, and reorient, the author builds off Sara Ahmed’s theory around reorientation to show how forms of discomfort force us to question where our experiences have positioned us and also to interrogate and look back at our lived experiences to understand the present in order to move forward from trauma. The historical moments that Danticat includes in Giselle’s narrative also works as a collective Haitian history. Danticat’s use of historical narratives offers a more comprehensive picture of Haitian cultural identity and how those historical narratives connect to our identities.