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Edited by
Catherine Barrette, Bridget Haylock

and Danielle Mortimer
Trauma Imprints
At the Interface
Series Editors
Dr Robert Fisher
Dr Daniel Riha
Advisory Board
Dr Alejandro Cervantes-Carson Dr Peter Mario Kreuter

Professor Margaret Chatterjee Martin McGoldrick
Dr Wayne Cristaudo Revd Stephen Morris
Mira Crouch Professor John Parry
Dr Phil Fitzsimmons Paul Reynolds
Professor Asa Kasher Professor Peter Twohig
Owen Kelly Professor S Ram Vemuri
Revd Dr Kenneth Wilson, O.B.E
An At the Interface research and publications project.

http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/
The Evil Hub

Trauma
2011
Trauma Imprints:
Performance, Art, Literature and Theoretical

Practice
Edited by
Catherine Barrette, Bridget Haylock

and Danielle Mortimer
Inter-Disciplinary Press
Oxford, United Kingdom
Inter-Disciplinary Press 2011
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/
The Inter-Disciplinary Press is part of Inter-Disciplinary.Net a global network

for research and publishing. The Inter-Disciplinary Press aims to promote and
encourage the kind of work which is collaborative, innovative, imaginative, and
which provides an exemplar for inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary
publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior
permission of Inter-Disciplinary Press.
Inter-Disciplinary Press, Priory House, 149B Wroslyn Road, Freeland,

Oxfordshire. OX29 8HR, United Kingdom.
+44 (0)1993 882087
ISBN: 978-1-84888-085-6
First published in the United Kingdom in eBook format in 2011. First Edition.
Table of Contents
Introduction ix
Catherine Barrette, Bridget Haylock and Danielle Mortimer
PART 1 Performative Traumas
Trauma and Recovery through Art: The Construction of Self 3

Catherine Barrette
Fathers and Sons: An Autoethnographic Case Study of 13

Bereavement and Trauma
Peter Bray and Oliver Bray
Trauma and Identity in Gaza: Shooting a Cast Lead Elephant 25

Jeanne E. Clark
Looking at the Iraq War with Eyes Wide Open: Trauma, 31

Memory and Ethics
Catherine Ann Collins
Be Careful with that Trauma, Christoph: Schlingensiefs 43

Dissensual Staging of the Unrepresentable
Janus Currie
Etiquette of Grief 53
Ellie Harrison
Dying on TV: Traumatic Encounter, on Screen and for Real 61

Misha Kavka
Public Hearing of Private Griefs: Investigating the Performance 69

of History in Jane Taylors Ubu and the Truth Commission and
John Kanis Nothing but the Truth
Tamar Meskin and Tanya van der Walt
PART 2 Literary Traumas
He looks at me as if I were a dog: Representations of Shame 81

and Trauma in the Fiction of Jean Rhys
Jack Dawson
Enlisting Rage and Speaking Place: Alexis Wrights Carpentaria 91

Bridget Haylock
Crane meets Cranium: The Crisis of Representing Trauma in 103
Richard Powerss The Echo Maker
Carolin Alice Hofmann
Locating the Trauma Womb: Ricardo Piglias Absent City 111

E.A. Leonard
Trauma, Memory and Identity in Australian War Fiction: 119

A Practitioners Viewpoint
Tessa Lunney
The Trauma of the Ephemeral Body in Michel Houellebecqs 127

Atomised and Oskar Roehlers Elementarteilchen
Imola Mik
Trauma and the Condition of the Postmodern Identity 137

Danielle Mortimer
Writing Tortures Remnants: Sovereign Power, Affect and the 145

War on Terror
Michael Richardson
Because Memory is Also a Prison: The Holocaust and the 155

Question of Representing Trauma in the Memoirs of
Ruth Elias and Ruth Klger
Anabela Valente Simes
Collective Trauma in Modern Afrikaans Fiction 165

Cilliers van den Berg
PART 3 Theorising Trauma in Practice
A Jungian Approach to Understanding and Treating Adopted 177

Children who were Traumatized Prior to Their Adoption
Mark Bortz
Trauma to the Body Politic: Impacts and Adjustments 189

Following Political Assassination
William W. Bostock
Criticizing Collective Trauma: A Plea for a Fundamental Social 199

Psychological Reflection of Traumatization Processes
Markus Brunner
Destabilizing Narratives of Values and Belief Systems: Identity 209
Trauma in Warfare
Pamela Creed
A Feel for the Organism: Cultural and Methodological Contexts 217

of Trauma Psychology from a Somatic-Energetic Perspective
Philip M. Helfaer
Psychoanalysis and Trauma: Changes in the Theory and the 229

Practice, from Freud to the Shoah
Clara Mucci
Touring the Traumascape: War Tours in Sarajevo 237

Patrick Naef
Persistence and Transformation of Cultural Trauma: 245

Commemoration of Soviet Deportations in the Media of
Post-Soviet Latvia (1987-2010)
Olga Procevska, Mrti Kaprns and Laura Uzule
Finding a Voice 253

Sue Robinson
Modern Turkey, a Traumatized Society: The Repressed 261

Experience of Torture and Killing after the Putsch in 1980
Georg Friedrich Simet
The Effect of a Guided Narrative Technique among Children 273

Traumatised by the Earthquake
Yinyin Zang, Nigel Hunt and Tom Cox
Introduction
Catherine Barrette, Bridget Haylock, and Danielle Mortimer

This eBook presents an international scholarly collection of chapters which
interrogate trauma, its ramifications, and expression as a r esult of Inter-
Disciplinary.Net sponsoring the first Global Conference on Trauma: Theory and
Practice, held in Prague, Czech Republic in March 2011. Held over three days, the
conference was designed to encourage participants to focus on questions that
emanate from notions of both individual and collective trauma. It promoted a
multi-disciplinary approach to this subject. Consequently the selection of chapters
represented work from a wide array of disciplines. This eBook offers a snapshot of
the conference proceedings, in which multiple approaches to similar questions
were taken and new questions were asked in a series of chapters that spoke to and
enhanced one another, even when disagreements arose between the approaches
taken.
Trauma has become a dominant and vital method of reading the events of both
recent history and contemporary culture. An explanation for the speed with which
trauma studies has broken away from its beginnings in the field of psychoanalysis
can partly be found in the flexibility of trauma theory as a method for reading both
the event itself and the reaction to the event. As was demonstrated by many of the
chapters given at the conference, it is the reaction to the event which can constitute
the majority of its traumatic impact. An important way the reaction to an event is
rendered traumatic is through the pressure the memory of the event exerts upon
language, pushing at the boundaries of what can be represented until silence
overtakes the attempt to speak. One of the major themes of the conference was an
agreement on the gulf that arises between the urge to represent trauma or to
critically assess representations of trauma, and the unrepresentable nature of the
traumatic event itself. Although this topic has been dealt with in special edition
journals and edited collections before, what made discussion of these problems
unique at the conference was the inter-/multi-disciplinary nature of the works
presented.
There emerged within the speakers chapters, two types of attempts to interact
with the problem of representing trauma; a p ractical type and a t heoretical one.
However, due to the interdisciplinary nature of the work of many of the speakers,
there was a l arge amount of crossover between these two approaches, and also
great diversity in how the two categories, practical and theoretical, were defined.
Two theatrical pieces were shown during the conference and are well
documented in the written chapters. Here, the presenters chose to transform their
personal mourning into performance. Ellie Harrison explored bereavement in
relation to individual and collective identity in theatre making, while Peter and
Oliver Bray weaved together the thoughts and recollections of three generations of
x Introduction
__________________________________________________________________
men touched by loss, trauma, and grief. Both chapters also examined the place of
comedy within the process of mourning.
In other presentations, speakers considered trauma in relation to creative
production. Catherine Ann Collins and Misha Kavka highlighted how visual
artworks can negotiate a traumatic experience and create a discursive space, and
language evokes personal and collective responses. Kavka focussed on the recent
fascination with televising death on-screen, examining both autobiographical film
and reality television to determine how the traumatic encounter with death is
mediated through its presence on the screen. Collins explores the effects of Eyes
Wide Open, a U.S. travelling community memorial developed by the American
Friends Service Organization (AFSC), which uses visual exhibitions to
metonymically represent the cultural and personal effects of the Iraq War. Other
speakers chose to present exhibitions and artists works through the relation
between such trauma, memory and identity, such as Jeanne E. Clarks work on
documentary film and testimony that arose in relation to the 2008 Israeli invasion
of Gaza. Yet others examined the issue of unrepresentability as a starting point to
explore the remediation of historic trauma in contemporary aesthetic practice
which attempts to challenge current systems of exclusion, as with Janus Curries
examination of Christoph Schlingensiefs public performance art. Through
differing forms and images, work on trauma appears to want to escape pain, to
sublimate it, to work past it. This was shown through the self-reflective chapter
given by Catherine Barrette on her artistic exploration of the issues surrounding
trauma through paintings, drawings and installation works. Indeed, creative works
address the core question of speaking the past, in order to mediate the tension
between the desire for retribution on the one hand and the need for reconciliation
on the other. Tamar Meskin and Tanya van der Walt considered this tension
through a South-African context in the plays of Jane Taylor and John Kani.
In contrast to these productions of original artistic representations of trauma,
literary scholars interrogated the efficacy of, and issues with, existing literary
representations of trauma through engagement with critical and theoretical
perspectives. Chapters given questioned the relationship between the artistic
production, the artists personal experience and trauma as a social and collective
concept within culture.
The chapters investigating literary interpretations of trauma can be loosely
divided into those concerned with memory and individual trauma a writing of the
unknown and those narrating collective trauma the writing of the unspeakable.
However, the distinction between the personal and political, between the individual
and the collective, is often blurred; hence questions of identity arise. The complex
post/colonial issues of South African and Australian societies offer cogent
examples of history as symptom of collective traumatic experience, as highlighted
in the chapters given by Cilliers van den Berg and Bridget Haylock. Chapters
examined the issue of the crisis of representation, noting that the act of producing
Catherine Barrette, Bridget Haylock and Danielle Mortimer xi
__________________________________________________________________
creative writing itself becomes a d emonstration of that which is deemed
unrepresentable, as Carolin Alice Hofmann noted in her chapter on the work of
writer Richard Powers.
Literary depictions of trauma function to bear witness and testify to traumatic
experience, since they break the silence and also redefine discourse, challenging
memory and identity. In traumatic silence there is denial and inequity. The
traumatised subject is compelled to deny that she witnesses her own subjectivity,
and it is at this point that the role of shame and its link to trauma was analysed in
chapters at the conference. Jack Dawsons chapter focused on the extent to which
trauma and shame are conjoined within, and together haunt, the fiction of Jean
Rhys, while Michael Richardson examines the balance of power in the silences and
rhetoric that surround the American use of torture in the war on terror.
It is in the engagement with writing that the unspeakable emerges from the
aporia in consciousness and releases its repressive energy. However, paradoxically,
language and narrative facilitates testimony only when unbearable silence reveals
the horror that it attempts to conceal. The universality of this paradox, and the
flexibility of trauma theory in general is shown by the fact that two very different
speakers at the conference focused specifically upon it. E.A. Leonard did so
through an examination of a novel by Argentine author Ricardo Piglia, set during
the governments reorganisation or unification of the country, whilst Tessa
Lunney focussed upon her own literary practice as a writer of Australian war
fiction. The postmodern condition offers the literary/trauma critic a challenge to
redefine the traumatic paradigm; what is instead discovered is endless repetition of
the present hyperreal, as was discussed by Danielle Mortimer in relation to the
work of Jean-Franois Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard.
Trauma is often hidden in the body, which is the target of, and the medium of
representation for political, cultural and gender inscription; corporeality then
becomes a valuable trope of trauma for literary investigation as was shown by
Imola Mik in her work on the controversial novel Atomised, and its translation
into a cinematic text. The feminine traumatic paradigm, which manifests as
encounters with aspects of the phallocentric world, facilitates traumatic repetition.
Experiences of opposition and denial serve to spur a fervent conviction for female
agency, and to find creative and cathartic expression in writing, or criture
feminine, as Anabela Valente Simes argued in her chapter on the Holocaust
testimonies of Ruth Elias and Ruth Klger.
Within the more practical and psychologically-driven chapters, the
complexities of stabilising what the term trauma denotes became entwined with
questions of whether individual or collective accounts and studies of trauma work
best to define it. In their acts of demarcating trauma, the speakers who dealt with
trauma in a practical capacity took radically different approaches. Some speakers,
such as William W. Bostock in his work on political assassination, explicitly
argued that trauma can be a collective phenomenon, and should be studied as such,
xii Introduction
__________________________________________________________________
while others, like Patrick Naef in his work on the Sarajevo trauma-site tourist
trade, implicitly assumed a level of collectively in the experience, representation
and study of trauma.
Others argued against the notion of collective trauma and the study of trauma as
a collective phenomenon, either openly within their chapters, as with Markus
Brunners criticism of the notion of collective trauma and his warning for a more
controlled use of the term trauma in general, or Philip M. Helfaer in his desire for a
more body-focussed and body-specific method of treating trauma. Alternatively,
speakers simply eschewed a collective theoretical approach by examining specific
traumas through individual case studies or individualised methods of storytelling.
Mark Bortz looked at the specific case study of a young boy, traumatised and
then adopted by loving parents, who produced a series of sand trays into which
Bortz reads a r epresentation of the boys mental health and subsequent
rehabilitation through therapy. Georg Friedrich Simet presented a s eries of case
studies of abuse and torture, connected to the political unrest in Turkey during the
1980s. Yinyin Zang, Nigel Hunt and Tom Cox explored the effectiveness for
Chinese children of specific techniques aimed at allowing trauma survivors to
speak their trauma and consequently to alleviate their symptoms of Post-
Traumatic-Stress Disorder.
For other speakers, it is the specific tension that arises between the individual
experience and the collective representation that can contribute to or create the
trauma itself. In their chapter, Olga Procevska, Mrti Kaprns and Laura Uzule
analysed the way Joseph Stalins extermination of sixty-thousand Latvians was
initially repressed, and then expressed, in the local and national Latvian-based and
Russian-run press, and the conflicts that arose in their representations. Creed, by
contrast, focused on the testimony of one American soldier and his alienation from
his previous values through the discrepancies of the media presentation of the war
in Iraq, and his personal experiences of it.
The notion of whether it is possible to represent trauma was heavily touted
within the literary, performance and theoretical chapters of the conference. Sue
Robinson, in her workshop, Finding a Voice, examined and prioritised the role of
language in the aftermath of trauma, while Clara Mucci highlighted the vitality of a
verbal engagement with the past in order to move forward. For Mucci, acquiring
language about the event is not enough however. In order to allow the trauma
survivor and future generations to work past the traumatic event, trauma survivors
retellings of trauma, she argued, must be accurate reconstructions, rather than
creative constructions.
Overall, throughout the conference different discourses about the notion and
nature of the term trauma were raised in friendly dialogue with one another,
creating a f ertile atmosphere of both exchange and potential change. We are
grateful for the support of Collette Balmain, Rob Fisher, and Daniel Riha from
Inter.Disciplinary.Net.
PART 1
Performative Traumas
Trauma and Recovery through Art: The Construction of Self
Catherine Barrette
Abstract
In current debates in trauma studies, theorists often raise the important question of
whether and in what mode trauma can be represented. Where the discourse seems
to coincide is how visual artists attempt to raise discussion around this question by
their particular use of experimental strategies. In my artistic practice, I have been
exploring the issues surrounding trauma through my paintings and drawings and,
more recently, through installation works. My personal circumstances provide a
unique platform from which to engage in this experimental art practice. I am a
polytrauma survivor and an above-knee amputee following a serious motor vehicle
accident several years ago. One of my main objectives is to explore the effects of
enduring significant wounds on the body and mind. My artistic process can be
described as a coming to terms with my changed sense of self and the construction
of my post-traumatic identity. This chapter will discuss my artwork as an
exploration of arts relationship to trauma through the dialectic of shattered body
and psyche, and through the narrative constructs that the recovery process requires.
At once a personal account of recovery and an exploration of trauma, this chapter
examines the undoing and remaking of self in the aftermath of trauma.
Key Words: Artworking, mourning, post-traumatic identity, trauma, resilience.
*****
1. Introduction
To heal, in its etymological meaning, is to make whole. Trauma, with its
psychic violence and sudden disruption, makes us suffer from lack of wholeness.
How can we understand this fragmentation, this lack of wholeness in relation to
finding meaning after tragic events? How can we come to terms with this changed
sense of self?
I will explore how the process of art making can take into account and make
visible the different fragments of self after trauma. Often, this indirect route of
communicating the journey from devastation to recovery enables the gathering and
assembling of fragments into a meaningful whole.
More specifically, I will describe my artistic process in which I address my
trauma obliquely, refraining from depicting narrative description to look instead at
the present lieu of the traumatic inscription. I will address these questions from an
artist/researcher position with a s cholarly approach embedded within the creative
process. I believe that these strategies contribute to a better understanding of
trauma, loss, resilience and the remaking of self.
4 Trauma and Recovery through Art
__________________________________________________________________
2. Trauma and Mourning
On 21 J anuary 1997, I was waiting to cross the street when two vehicles
collided. The impact sent a truck careening into me, throwing me against a tree.
My injuries included collapsed lungs, brain trauma and swelling, loss of blood,
broken bones and tissue damage. My left leg was badly damaged and subsequently
amputated above the knee.
I do not remember the accident and have only patchy memories of the first
week at the hospital. The injuries were so serious that my doctors doubted that I
would survive. My first flashes of reality were of agonising pain, panic and fear.
These initial moments clearly illustrate the Freudian definition of psychic
traumata: a psychic deformation and symbolic wound where the usual way of
dealing with or processing an experience fails. 1
In the months that followed, the ensuing surgeries and medical interventions
were effective. I continued physical rehabilitation for my broken bones, amputated
leg and traumatic brain injury for several years. The events of this accident caused
great discontinuities in my life that took years to reconcile. Eight months after the
accident, I returned to work part time and faced difficult physical and emotional
sequelae that eroded my strength. It took five years and five different positions to
admit my failings and resign myself to letting go of former ambitions.
Paradoxically, acknowledging my limitations enabled me to recognise my need to
express my ideas through visual means.
After resigning from my employment in 2003, I began my studies in Fine Arts
where I revisited the subject matter of the accident and painted several artefacts
from my tragic event. My representative work in painting was not unlike the
psychological work of analysis. I reacted to the facts and events of the accident and
began staging potential encounters with objects to mourn lost facets of my life:
former ambitions, freedom of movement, cognitive abilities and identity.
Mourning is the feeling or manifestation of profound sorrow implying deep
emotions felt over time. In his book The New Black, Darian Leader describes the
process of mourning a lost loved one in the following words:
In mourning, our memories and hopes linked to the one weve

lost are run through, and each is met with the judgment that the
person is no longer there. This process of surveying and
reshuffling thoughts and images will eventually exhaust itself,
and the mourner will choose life over death. 2
My artistic process was my way of what Darian Leader calls killing the dead
and helped to symbolically put to rest the imagery of the accident. 3 Leader
proposes that killing the dead is an essential part of the work of mourning and a
way of loosening ones bonds to the lost object. 4 Killing the dead is central to
many aspects of popular culture. 5 It involves a persons symbolic death, which
Catherine Barrette 5
__________________________________________________________________
Leader argues is for the mourner different from the persons real biological death.
Specific to each persons course of mourning, the process of killing the dead makes
it possible to create new ties with the living. 6 I found through the arts a process to
mourn and begin reconfiguring my fragmented life.
3. Artworking
My artistic practice centres on representing trauma as it serves to mourn deep
emotions about my serious accident and make the necessary internal
transformations regarding my losses. The artist and psychoanalyst Bracha Ettinger
uses the term artworking to characterise her own painting practice at this
threshold between trauma and representation. My practice can be considered a type
of psychic working or, in Ettingers words, a transportstation of trauma worked
over time. Such transportstation not only helps to alleviate the pain of loss but also
plays a significant role in reclaiming ones own life. 7
I would like to further Ettingers definition of artworking by describing my
artwork where I explore the process of coming to terms with my changed sense of
self and begin forming my post-traumatic identity. In my case, I do not limit my
interest to representing trauma in narrative terms or expressing painful experiences
in abstract forms. I represent the trauma through aesthetic means with the intention
of generating emotions for the viewer without necessarily communicating my
personal experience; it is through this affective encounter that the viewer engages
aesthetically with my work.
As part of this continued artworking process, I painted the tree I was thrown
against in my accident. I returned to the accident site and took several detailed
photographs of the tree, its branches and the surrounding area. Despite the fact that
a decade had passed since my accident, the tree still bore a gouge where the truck
had pinned me against its trunk. I then painted the tree in a static, fragmented
version emphasising its trunk and branching structure. My underlying purpose was
to explore the registration of the tree through my fragmented memory.
Tree (2008) is painted on canvas using tar and a dark palette of oil paints. In
this larger-than-life painting, my tree reveals itself through the repetition of broken
geometric forms, allowing for a f ractured impression of the trunk. In Tree, the
visible physical wounds and impact scar of the accident meet the viewers gaze in
the forefront of the composition. Washed out tar and paint blotches form the trunk
while fragile lines evoke branches reaching out to the sky. The tumultuous shapes
and boundaries of the trunk mirror the brutal psychic redefinition of the selfs own
territory following trauma. Through this piece of artwork, I am attempting to evoke
sensation and affect to show the experience of trauma.
__________________________________________________________________
Tree (2008), oil on canvas, 10 X 6
Jill Bennett, an art historian engaged in furthering the study of cultural trauma,
proposes that through visual means, the affective quality of artwork contributes to
a new understanding of the experiences of trauma and loss. Bennett understands
affect as the effect a given object or practice has on the viewer and his or her
embodied reaction. 8 Bennetts theories broaden the psychoanalytical investigation
of trauma studies of theorists such as Cathy Caruth. 9 Bennett proposes a formal
innovation: a communicable language of sensation and affect with which to
register something of the experience of traumatic memory. 10 According to her,
defining this new language for trauma through art opens up a contemporary
discourse on the lived experience and memories of trauma. With my artwork, I
hope to represent the conflict and loss surrounding my traumatic experience and
thus participate in defining Bennetts language for representing trauma.
Tree is an example of how artworking can be used to explore new perspectives
on life after trauma. My examination and transformation of the tree made me
notice that the accident impact mark on the tree trunk had changed positions in the
last decade; the tree was resilient and had even grown despite being injured in the
accident.
It seems to me that the tree is an apt metaphor in the case of resilience,
representing the capacity to positively adapt to a n ew situation in the face of
adversity. Resilience is also the product of the dynamic interaction between a range
of risks and protective factors internal and external to a person at various stages of
his or her life. 11 It is therefore a d ynamic process that can lead to adaptive
outcomes in the face of difficulties; it is not a fixed state nor is it unchangeable
over time. For me, resilience can be viewed as a process, a give and take between
myself and my environment, rather than a static characteristic or personality trait. 12
Just as the strength of the trunk protected the tree, thereby allowing it to continue
__________________________________________________________________
to grow, my resilient self assisted me in weathering the negative effects of my
trauma.
I am particularly fascinated by how artworking uses imagination to reframe loss
after trauma. Resisting closure, artworking makes us approach trauma binaries of
past and present, victim and victimiser, spectacle and spectator through a
transformative process. In engaging with issues of trauma, resilience and
artworking can explore memory through a self-reflective engagement. Artworking
lends support to the centrality of the enabling and protective function of belief in
ones capability to exercise some measure of control over traumatic adversity. This
perceived coping self-efficacy emerges as a focal mediator of recovery and
healing. 13
For the traumatised individual, artworking can assist in communicating
thoughts, experiences and self-perceptions that are beneficial and, I believe,
cognitively necessary. This is because traumatic experiences are so disruptive that
they are unlikely to be transferred to memory in lexical terms. They must be stored
as sensory or iconic schemas. Such schemas can be inflexible and remain
unavailable to the individual. For this reason, artworking provides a schema-based
process through which traumatised individuals can render their inner experiences
visible through images and therefore better represent their trauma.
4. Representing Trauma
My continued artworking process subsequently led me to explore the body in
figurative paintings and drawings to represent trauma. Greatly inspired by other
artists such as Frieda Kahlo, I found the courage to use my own body in my
artwork. Body Series (2009) includes thirty-two drawings depicting an almost
filmic rendition of different poses I photographed myself in. In Body 13, the visible
physical wounds and scar of my amputation meet the gaze of the viewer in the
forefront of the composition; washed out gouache blotches the body, while
repeated lines evoke body movements.
Body 13 (2009), charcoal and gouache on paper, 16 X 20

__________________________________________________________________
Much of my symbolic practice relating to trauma blurs the distinction between
the inside and the outside of the body; it e ncourages a fluid reading in which
meaning moves freely. In Body Series, the tumultuous lines and boundaries mirror
the violent psychic redefinition of the selfs own territory, often edged by messy
paint, metaphorically referring to the bodys abject fluids. The fragmented
topography of the drawings and the presence of the gouache signal the violence
and traumatic nature of the accident.
Body Series attempts to represent the physical and psychic trauma my body
endured as a r esult of my accident. Through this artwork, my aesthetic strategies
ask the viewer to encounter trauma through disjuncture and dissonance. New forms
of physical presence and beauty can be found, as the viewer needs to make an
internal effort to be able to understand the experience of trauma. The artwork here
extends beyond the object to describe the experience of loss, emotional distress and
process of adapting to change and creating new ties with the living. The drawings
in Body Series demonstrate how embodiment acts as the point of exchange
between the self and the world to become a discourse on representing trauma. I
believe that it is only through this process of repetition and reshuffling that we can
attempt to represent trauma and begin to define our post-traumatic identity.
5. Forming a Post-traumatic Identity

Defining my post-traumatic identity includes living with changed body
morphology because of my above-knee amputation, wearing a p rosthesis and
living with a disability. You could say that my disability acquires an aesthetic
value as I incorporate images of my amputated body into my work.
Through Merleau-Ponty theories, I have begun to understand how trauma did
not necessarily disrupt the unity of my bodily experience. Through embodiment,
my lived experience constantly moves toward equilibrium. The body can extend
an object, for example, how my prosthesis extends my leg, so that it literally
becomes part of my body. This extension, named bodily synthesis by Merleau-
Ponty, is a search for equilibrium that is central to the adjustment I needed to make
with my amputation and forming a post-traumatic identity. 14
In my continued research, I became interested in representing trauma and my
new sense of body awareness. Legs (2010), comprised of two black and white
photographs, depicts the lower half of my body sitting on a hardwood floor. The
first image shows my left amputated stump, a small gap and a sculpted leg placed
on the floor. Replacing the amputated section, the ceramic sculpture, glazed in a
weathered bone-like finish, replicates the missing leg. The sculpture haunts the
viewer, as the ceramic leg sits lifeless, a senseless replica that cannot function at
all. I sculpted this ceramic leg during an artistic residency with a true desire to
come into contact once again with my missing body part. When my right foot
touches the ceramic sculpture, I can feel a sensation through the replicated leg.
__________________________________________________________________
Legs (2010), digital print, 8 x 16
The second image shows my prosthesis extending from my socket to my knee

unit and ending with the plastic covering for my mechanical foot. While the
prosthesis is fabricated, it necessarily connects to my lower body configuration to
be able to function. Where my right foot touches the prosthesis, I can feel the
stroking sensation in my body. My prosthesis is clearly part of my body. I embody
my environment through my prosthetic flesh and my sense of space is established
according to this particular body image.
Legs assisted me in re-visualising and re-awaring my traumatised body in and
to its environment in its surrounding space, a phenomenological approach enabling
a post-traumatic identity to begin to be defined. As such, the description of ones
lived experience is changed from an objectifying purpose to one of articulating
ones bodily position within certain conditions of space and its surrounding
objects. This enables a more interpretive and fluid understanding of trauma in
relation to the body and identity formation.
6. Conclusion
These works engage both the body and trauma in a reflexive artworking
process. They deal with the difficult events and painful images of traumatic events,
while still producing art that is engaging to the viewer. My experience confirms
that a commitment to artworking can transform trauma and assist one in coming to
terms with the wounds and suffering of tragic incidents and forming a post-
traumatic identity.
I believe that an artworking approach based on imagination is effective for
comprehending the essence of trauma. Shaping and encompassing the chaos and
fragmentation of the traumatic experience through an artworking process is a
critical component of post-traumatic identity formation. Art has an affective reality
__________________________________________________________________
on people: it creates an impact by touching us through our senses and inciting
meaningful change. Through artworking, we can speak, dance, sing, and enact
scenes not in order to deny the fragmentation caused by the trauma but to reveal it.
This revelation is also about post-traumatic healing: a transformation and gathering
up of the disjointed parts into a fragmented whole. Indeed, healing after trauma
implies the acceptance of fragmentation as a permanent part of human existence.
Notes
1
S. Freud and J. Rickman, The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis, A
General Selection from the Works of Sigmund Freud, Doubleday Anchor Books,
New York, 1957, pp. 6-7.
2
D. Leader, The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia, and Depression, Hamish
Hamilton, London, 2008, p. 60.
3
Ibid., p. 114.
4
Ibid., p. 124.
5
Ibid., p. 116.
6
Ibid., p. 124.
7
B. Lichtenberg-Ettinger, Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger: Artworking, 1985-1999,
Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 2000, p. 91.
8
J. Bennett, Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma, and Contemporary Art (Cultural
Memory in the Present), Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2005, p. 2.
9
See C. Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History, Johns
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1996.
10
Bennett, p. 2.
11
S.J. Lepore and T.A. Revenson, Relationships between Posttraumatic Growth
and Resilience: Recovery, Resistance and Reconfiguration, Handbook of
Posttraumatic Growth: Research and Practice, L. Calhoun and R. Tedeschi (eds),
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey, 2006, p. 29.
12
C.M. Aldwin and K.J. Sutton, A Developmental Perspective on Posttraumatic
Growth, in Posttraumatic Growth: Positive Changes in the Aftermath of Crisis, R.
Tedeschi, C. Park and L. Calhoun (eds), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New
Jersey, 1998, p. 65.
13
H. Tennen and G. Affleck, Personality and Transformation in the Face of
Adversity, Posttraumatic Growth: Positive Changes in the Aftermath of Crisis, R.
Jersey, 1998, pp. 43-63.
14
M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, Routledge, London, 2002, p.
171.
__________________________________________________________________
Bibliography
Aldwin, C.M. and Sutton, K.J., A Developmental Perspective on Posttraumatic
Growth. Posttraumatic Growth: Positive Changes in the Aftermath of Crisis. R.
Jersey, 1998.
Bennett, J., Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma, and Contemporary Art (Cultural
Memory in the Present). Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2005.
Caruth, C., Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History. Johns Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore, 1996.
Freud, S. and Rickman, J., A General Selection from the Works of Sigmund Freud.
Liveright, New York, 1957.
Lepore, S.J. and Revenson, T.A., Relationships between Posttraumatic Growth

and Resilience: Recovery, Resistance, and Reconfiguration. Handbook of
Posttraumatic Growth: Research and Practice. L. Calhoun and R. Tedeschi (eds),
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey, 2006.
Leader, D., The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression. Hamish
Hamilton, London, 2008.
Lichtenberg-Ettinger, B., Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger: Artworking, 1985-1999.

Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 2000.
Merleau-Ponty, M., Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge, London, 2002.
Tennen, H. and Affleck, G., Personality and Transformation in the Face of

Adversity. Posttraumatic Growth: Positive Changes in the Aftermath of Crisis. R.
Jersey, 1998.
Catherine Barrette is a P hD candidate in Philosophy (Special Individualised

Program) at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Through an
artist/researcher position with a s cholarly approach embedded within the creative
process, her research and writing investigates how artistic practice can transform
trauma.
Fathers and Sons: An Autoethnographic Case Study of
Bereavement and Trauma
Peter Bray and Oliver Bray

Abstract
Just before Sam died, his son Peter travelled from his home in Hawkes Bay, New
Zealand, to conduct some preliminary research with his son Oliver who lives in
Leeds, Great Britain. With Peters interests in loss, post-traumatic growth and
transpersonal experiences and Olivers in theatre making, performance and
pedagogy they began to discover that they shared much common ground. Shortly
after their time together Peter travelled to Moscow to deliver a paper on Hamlet.
What follows is a weaving of the thoughts and recollections of three generations of
men touched by loss, trauma and grief.
Key Words: Autoethnography, consciousness, father, ghost, grief, loss,

performance, son, transpersonal, trauma.
*****
I knew that Dad was going to die

I knew that Granddad was going to
die
This is my search for healing
This is my search for what needs to
be healed
Call it therapy
Call it indulgent
Call it control
Make it holy
Makes it real
Makes it holey
So I can mourn
Understand it wholly
Take it or leave
But dont leave it
Take it.
This has been more difficult to I am in the business of meaning

recall than I could have imagined. making, quite literally. The theatre-
This inevitable loss unpacks all maker designs the conditions for
14 Fathers and Sons
__________________________________________________________________
previous accumulating losses in my potential meaning. Meaning is
life: the divorces and forced slippery, it cannot be projected, it
separations from family; becoming can only be genuinely created by
an immigrant; and, the accidental the individual who registers it.
deaths of my sons and wife. The Meaning exists only in the moment
death of my father affects me of perception. I consciously suffer
intellectually and viscerally, (and therefore understand)
igniting memory and forcing a re- bereavement when I think about
remembering, retelling and bereavement. Im thinking about it
reconstruction of all losses and all now, what my father and I have
traumas. Nothing will be as it was. suffered and continue to suffer - I
The ghosts of these events demand cant help but want to think about
attention and there is no going something else.
back.
What does that mean?
What does that mean?
Sams death challenges us to talk
together.
A year earlier we had organised to
do some joint research. This meant,
curiously, that we all happened to
Even as I was anticipating Dads be together in England at the time
death I selfishly didnt want it to that Granddad died.
interrupt my relationship with my
son whom I hadnt seen for a few The influential factors of our lives
months. I had been anticipating and are created by the environment, us,
savouring this time together after and those around us - together, all
ten years of fleeting meetings. A shifting our perceptions and
wonderful chance to learn from context. That is where the
him and share our creativity to responsibility lies, not on the
make something of us. The plan shoulders of those it involves, but
was to become reacquainted and the frame they find themselves in -
map out common personal and and its chaotic - too many
academic ground. What unfolded variables, too much to try and
was a s hared interest in the control. T his is why the condition
disclosure and the illumination of of performance is so tantalising.
reality or truth through creative Its a vacuum, a s pace where the
processes and - that play Hamlet. variables can be vetted and
By performing the self the controlled - like the pages of this
individual is able to see more document - ink and paper, pixels
clearly and understand his or her on a computer screen - and that is
self in action. all.
Peter Bray and Oliver Bray 15
__________________________________________________________________
In counselling, the therapeutic Creative practice is inviting for the
space provides opportunities to control-freak because it is more
safely explore the experience of a tangible than the real world. For an
traumatic event. The counsellor hour or so, the environment is
supports clients to reframe mine, I shape it, and therefore I
experiences and create new shape what you see. This page has
meaning and purpose for their been designed by me; Ive shaped
lives. My disclosure about Dads it and decided the placement and
death here is a p urposeful way of order of the words that you now
acknowledging and understanding read. Frustratingly, I cannot
the power of sharing the impact of control your interpretation and it is
my losses with others. the recognition of this hopelessness
that is liberating. Your
I have experienced the very real and understanding of what I feel about
unfathomable rawness of grief whilst loss is bound up with who you are.
simultaneously understanding that Youre altering my grief and you
loss is inevitable. To paraphrase havent even read this yet (at the
Hamlet, sons lose their fathers, it is time of writing), you dont exist yet
common. Fathers also lose their sons - but you float around me like a
and it hurts like hell. Bonds made ghost.
are not so easily broken and my
father and lost sons must somehow Postmodernism is, by definition (a
find a home in me. Truth fragments definition that it d oesnt have)
and reality expands to accommodate unclear - thats the point.
new, bittersweet experiences of pain Fragmented, borrowing, being
and solace. incomplete, denying the possibility
of truth and using that denial as a
When I arrived in England I hadnt springboard to something else - the
allowed myself to realise how sick unbound, the instinctual, the
Dad was. I was a child ... so much begged, borrowed and stolen. I d
in denial about his condition and like to take more ownership of my
about my own responsibilities. grief but I cant grab it, its always
Death was inconceivable and someone elses or a poor imitation
inconvenient, sabotaging my - I dont how to perform it and I
carefully arranged long-term plans, dont know how to stop needing to.
scuppering my ambitious
presentation in Moscow, I think really Im a positivist; I like
interrupting my new relationship structure, organisation, systems and
with my son. being systematic. This is probably
reflective of a car eer that
necessarily bleeds meaning,
grapples with concepts of
16 Fathers and Sons
__________________________________________________________________
Dad had always seemed so ephemerality - trying always to
negative about my work and his catch while simultaneously
death at this time seemed like the expecting the fumble. The
ultimate act of control. headache of my often conceptual
practice makes me strive for the
systems found everywhere else.
Perhaps regrettably, death has
always seemed like its part of a
Later, I realised that Dads decline system to me, the circle of life -
was not about bad timing. My something very clear and sensible.
family needed me to see this When the system is upset, as it was
through. I needed to see this with my brothers death, the system
through but it was a struggle to is challenged and the narrative of
silence the child life explodes again. I am left to
Why me? Why be there to witness take myself back, over time, to
the end? Does Dad really want where the structures are, so that I
this? may again feel secure, impacting
Am I less of a son for considering and in control. I wonder how
my life before his? This is the Granddad was changed by his
realm of responsibility, guilt and experience of death
conventional expectations.
*
The Gun
1
Sam Bray was a veteran of the Once in a time, in a far off land
Second World War. Like so many We lived in a world of rock and
passionate and kind men he had sand
lived an unremitting nightmare that Stung by the wind, scorched by the
deeply changed him and coloured sun
our family life. Our only friend was a gun.
2 3
We lived as beasts of burden then The Gun was our God, and we its
And toiled to obey our fellow men crew
Till our hearts were stone and our Bowd down before its fiery spew
bones were steel We starved to feed its fiery breech
And only the gun was real. And make the monster retch
__________________________________________________________________
4 5
Time passed and Death who paced I am but young, I should be gay
with war I should love life, song and play
Struck till the world could stand no But Ive left my youth in a far off
more land
And men, with horror over run Hidden beneath the windswept
Turned sickened from the Gun sand
Scorched and scarred by the sun
Crushed by a worn out Gun
He was a good man, a warrior, Samuel Bray, Gunner, 51st Field

managing appallingly complicated Artillery Regiment, Circa 1942,
losses. H e lived in two worlds unpublished.
simultaneously, parenting us in the *
best way he knew whilst he relived
horrors and grieved for his fallen His love, his wounds and his words
comrades in arms. are passing down the generations.
We are listening ...
I am his son. He shaped me and I
copied his modelling by acting out I think about Granddad more now
both his caring and his disruptive that he is dead. H is extinguished
anger without being aware of its consciousness has been raised into
true significance. H is grief was mine. I consider him more now. I
vast, unbearable and largely only properly realised that he was a
unspoken. If only he had ... If only father (and not just a grandfather)
we had listened ... when he was dying - my own
father started to talk about it in
terms I could understand.
Thats not just you and me ...
Thats probably everyone
Pumped full of painkillers and no
longer able to communicate except Fathers and sons - I always thought
by touch, Dad lingered on a living that you sort of chose the
ghost. After some soul searching relationship. B ut, the genetic tie
mum decided that he would have thrusts an instinctual responsibility
wanted me to present my paper in into a relationship that is destined
Moscow after all, so I went. to be problematic anyway. The age
gap is too big (initially) the status
is unequal (mostly) and friendship
is fragile (forever). It is impossible
for sons and fathers to have a
proper relationship in the first 25
18 Fathers and Sons
__________________________________________________________________
years of the sons life and by the
end of the 25 years required to fix
it - the father will be dead, or
dying.
But we try, and we must. That

That first day was highly charged. I responsibility, that bond, is one of
had just left Dads bedside, arrived the strongest we will ever have.
in Moscow at midnight, my
luggage lost in transit for three The past is a f oreign country. W e
days, and with no change of shouldnt associate memory with
clothes. Why was I here? absolute truth just a kind of
truth, a personal truth at most.
On day two, with Dad on his Everything I remember about
deathbed, I lay down on a mat in a Granddad is true. Every trip to the
pre-conference breath workshop seaside, every walk round the
and practiced being more alive. lanes, every time he held me as a
baby, every photograph that was
taken before I was born.
Relaxed and breathing deeply I
meet my Dad. I can see him. His Grief allows me to be provocative.
fragile body is awkwardly caged in You can find your Dads where
a vast metal bed buttressed by you please
painfully large pillows, fighting for
each rasping breath, unable to Hamlet sits in a s pecial place for
communicate. My orientation me because of my father. There is
changes and I become him his something seductive in seeing
feelings are my feelings. Even as I obsession from a distance. My
experience his painful breathing, father loves this play and so I have
fused with him I understand there tried to. Im not especially
is so much more. I feel his lifes interested in seeing the play
final struggle torn between the performed. But, I enjoy the
uncertainties of life and death. I language, I enjoy catching the
lend him comfort with my presence phrases that are now common
and a trickle of warm recognition parlance - the idea that
comes back. I am understood. contemporary vernacular uttered
Tears of joy stream down my face. without a second thought, is a
A softly glowing globe appears and quotation - that ghosts of a literary
as I willingly take it, I feel myself text slide from mouths without a
lighting up with relief and joy. Dad thought for the author or aura of its
and I have been together - we are source. I see death in this way.
together! We shared an For all thats lost, as much remains.
__________________________________________________________________
extraordinary moment and he gave We embody information as we
me a g reat treasure, something spend our lives being saturated by
wonderful and inexplicable. Now I it. Of course we can intentionally
know that he is free in a way that I learn things, but we also learn and
can only just conceive and I know are influenced despite ourselves.
with absolute certainty that he is You cant take away what youve
alright - that we are alright! seen or experienced and there is the
legacy. Granddadness is in me
I had been breathing for over two (regardless of fantastical
hours but had no notion of the time. memories) and I can/need do
When I looked at my phone I saw nothing about it.
that my sister had text me to say
that Dad had died. Even if thats not true, it is true,
even if I wasnt there, I was. These
Okay, this is not Hamlet ... but my are things I re member, whether I
fathers ghost, for want of a better remember them or not.
word, sought me out to forgive us,
reconcile us, and redeem us.
You left me You left me
Nothing ... What does that mean?
We never really had that I know

conversation did we?
Were not that dramatic. Funny

Its hard to talk, to be truthful when considering
truth hurts others. People you love.
People who are absent or lost. Its
fragile enough as it is without
creating more misunderstanding,
more loss.
I have no doubt that your absence

has been a big part of the formation
of my identity. Any negativity I
associate with that becomes as
much about me as it does about
you. I was upset but people get
upset, its over now.
20 Fathers and Sons
__________________________________________________________________
I was lost
Were about strength, solving

problems, not panicking. We avoid
upsetting people. We dont go on
Of course about it though do we?
You did leave me though, didnt

you?
My happiness is bound up with the

happiness of those around me. Im
brightened by seeing joy in those I
care about. I cant claim
ownership of happiness myself, or
ownership of sadness, actually. I
dont cry and I didnt cry for
Granddad until the memorial
service (where the conditions were
right).
Writing these words makes me feel

like the idea of terrible, like they
might make someone else sad. Am
I grieving for Granddad - I dont
know, depends on what terms,
whose terms? Part of me, as I
watched him, helpless on his
hospital bed, had realised the
inevitable. No one was
accountable, no one did anything
wrong, no one was to blame.
Protest to the fact of death (in this
instance) is unfounded,
unreasonable, and can make the
Rationalisation to avoid feeling? situation worse.
You sound like your Granddad
Particular kinds of feeling. Is all

feeling worth feeling?
__________________________________________________________________
Dont judge me as you piece
together the aspects of this text that
point to a personality type or
behavioural pattern. I know you
will. B ut be conscious of your
tarring of me, you own the brush
and I never came near it.
When we read a n ovel we place

others and ourselves into the
narrative. W e complete the detail
of every place and person by
At the close of his tragedy Hamlet projecting our personally
implores his friend to stay alive to experienced DNA and filling the
tell his story 99.99% that the story doesnt tell
This was my story. It will become us. Remember this, as you
our story, my sons and my Dads. construct our identities. Im happy
It belongs to us all. In this to become your simulacrum, but
witnessing, our losses become over time the simulacrum will
transformed through our lives. become less yours and will grow in
Our story is everyones. It is the distance from me - youll forget
collective telling and re- and Ill never know.
remembering of what we most
value. I tell you because its interesting
isnt it? And thats enough. Thats
enough to legitimise anything. I
once met an artist who was wearing
a small white badge with black
EVERTHING IS writing on it that read
INTERESTING
I couldnt disagree more. I told the

NOT EVERYTHING IS artist that the badge should read
INTERESTING.
THAT DEVALUES
INTERESTING, BUT SOME
THINGS ARE INTERESTING
AND THOSE THINGS SHOULD
BE
NURTURED AND GIVEN TIME,
SPACE AND RECOGNITION.
22 Fathers and Sons
__________________________________________________________________
The artist claimed the badge was
too small for that.
I guess loss and trauma are on-

going - no time limit, no sell by
date. Mum still smells his presence.
I dream him. Grandma still talks to the urn,
finding that Granddad in his
physical form (however changed)
is still the place to go to
How I grieve is mediated. How I communicate with him.
buried my Dad was regulated.
Dad would have preferred a bag or
a cardboard coffin
Spare any expense! Well take

our identities from the multiple
If doing it right is an expression impositions thrust upon us.
of Dads worth then fine.
Fine.
I can/cant sense him. (delete as

applicable)
He is a part of me now
A part of us.
Bibliography
Bray, P., A Broader Framework for Exploring the Influence of Spiritual
Experience in the Wake of Stressful Life Events: Examining Connections between
Posttraumatic Growth and Psycho-Spiritual Transformation. Mental Health,
Religion and Culture. Vol. 13, 2010, pp. 293-308.
Calhoun, L. and Tedeschi R., Facilitating Posttraumatic Growth: A Clinicians

Guide. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, London, 1999.
Chang, H., Autoethnography as Method. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, 2008.
Heddon, D., Autobiography and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke,

2007.
__________________________________________________________________
Herman, J.L., Trauma and Recovery. Basic Books, New York, 1992.
Janoff-Bulman, R., Shattered Assumptions: Towards a New Psychology of

Trauma. Free Press, New York, 1992.
Klass, D., Silverman, P.R. and Nickman, S.L., Continuing Bonds. Taylor Francis,
Washington, 1996.
Smith, S. & Watson J., Interfaces: Women, Autobiography, Image, Performance.

The University of Michigan Press, Michigan, 2002.
Tedeschi, R. and Calhoun L., Trauma and Transformation: Growing in the

Aftermath of Suffering. Sage Publications, London, 1995.
Walsh, F., Male Trouble: Masculinity and the Performance of Crisis. Palgrave
Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2011.
Worden, J.W., Grief Counselling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental
Health Practitioner. Springer Publishing, New York, 2009.
Peter Bray is a Senior Lecturer in Counselling at the Eastern Institute of

Technology in Hawkes Bay, NZ. His current research and writing reflect a
growing interest in making and exploring connections between loss, grief and the
impact of spiritual dimensions of experience upon post-traumatic growth, and
self consciousness in counselling practice.
Oliver Bray is a Senior Lecturer in Performance Practice at Leeds Metropolitan

University, UK, where he is also a University Teacher Fellow. He is the Artistic
Director of Until Thursday Theatre Company and his research interests include
performance pedagogy, contemporary theatre making and self-consciousness and
grief in performance practice. www.oliverbray.com
Trauma and Identity in Gaza: Shooting a Cast Lead Elephant
Jeanne E. Clark
Abstract
Palestinians and Jewish Israelis have long memories of diaspora and war
intensified. For both groups those memories are as essential to the shaping of their
national identities as the land they both claim. This chapter is a study of the
relation between trauma, memory and identity as it is portrayed in two artefacts
about Operation Cast Lead, the 2008 Israeli invasion of Gaza. Arces documentary,
To Shoot An Elephant, recalls Orwells essay witnessing colonial violence in Asia;
the documentary portrays the war through the eyes of activists embedded with
Palestinian ambulance drivers. The film underscores the link to past violence in the
accounts of the current victims. In the second artefact, testimonies recorded by
Breaking the Silence, soldiers in Cast Lead recount conditions in which the Israeli
tradition of purity of arms was no longer clear. Their testimonies portray them as
simultaneously victimizers of the people they were ordered to attack and victims of
the army that required their complicity and expected their silence. This chapter
examines the interconnected trauma of the conflicted parties, as past violence
evokes value-laden narratives that shape the understanding of and response to the
current conflict. Traumatized identity potentially imprisons the future of its
victims.
Key Words: Gaza, Cast Lead, trauma, memory, identity, Israel, Palestinians.
*****
There was a wry joke among Palestinians in 1993: offered the Gaza Strip as a
basis of their national state, they would ask what will you pay us to take it? Gaza
was a source of trouble: too many people, too little water, too little opportunity. It
was a n ightmare for whoever governed it. After decades as a cr owded refugee
camp, Gaza was transformed into a cage when Israel exerted control of all legal
access to the strip after Hamas came to power. Gideon Levy, a co lumnist for the
Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, described it as the largest prison on earth, a gruesome
experiment performed on human beings. 1
In December 2008, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, a major air and
ground incursion into the besieged strip. By its end there were thirteen Israeli dead,
over thirteen hundred Palestinian dead (mostly non-combatants), and thousands of
homeless Gazans, The conflict ended with war crime charges.
This chapter explores varied aspects of trauma in the context of that war. It
focuses on two quite different texts. To Shoot an Elephant is a documentary film
by Alberto Arce and Muhammed Rujailah. 2 It looks at the war through the eyes of
international activists in Gaza to serve as witnesses of a war, the ambulance drivers
26 Trauma and Identity in Gaza
__________________________________________________________________
with whom they were embedded and their Palestinian fixer. The title is an obvious
reference to Orwells essay, Shooting an Elephant. 3 The organized violence Orwell
participated in became for him a d emoralizing force that dehumanized both
colonized and colonizer. The film focuses on the trauma of the colonized with the
violent present as a continuation of the traumatic past.
The second text provides voices of traumatized colonizers - Israeli soldiers who
reported their experiences in Cast Lead to a g roup of Israeli veterans known as
Breaking the Silence. 4 Their testimony presents the soldiers as Orwell is portrayed
in Shooting an Elephant, corrupted and tormented by the violence and conditions
of the colonialism they enforce.
This chapter considers three ideas. First is the role of traumatic history in the
narratives of the Cast Lead participants. Second is the loss of a valued identity as
an additional stressor for the soldiers. Third is the sense of helplessness felt by
some members of both groups - a felt inability to communicate their concerns to
those who might correct the problem. This constitutes a literal and figurative
silencing of those who would object to the colonial structure.
1. Revisiting a Traumatic History

The event of Operation Cast Lead is experienced within a cultural context, and
the cultural identities of the participants are based on selected, but sometimes
conflicting aspects of that context. Trauma narratives - the Holocaust and the
Nakba - are central to the identity of Israeli and Palestinian people.
Writing of the Holocaust as a narrative vacuum that lacked precedent and so
was difficult for those experiencing it to remember or represent, Van Alphen
notes that: Events always have a prehistory, and they are themselves the
prehistory of events. 5 The Holocaust serves as that overriding prehistory event
within Israeli cultural identity - foundational narrative that necessitates the
provision of a secure home for the survivors. This mandates a strong military to
insure the founding trauma will not occur again. Every threat to the state and
security evokes the old trauma and so, as Wasserman notes, self-preservation is a
symptom of the national trauma and the trauma of the Holocaust past is redeemed
through the fight for statehood. 6 When rockets are fired from Gaza into bordering
Israeli communities those rockets exacerbate the traumatized security need. Within
the narrative of Holocaust trauma and Israeli collective identity, the rockets must
be stopped to prevent another set of Jewish victims. In the context of the Holocaust
narrative, it does not matter if the rockets are rarely effective; that they are ever
effective is a denial of security that evokes the sense of trauma.
A writer for the Neshamah centre opens his web entry on Cast Lead with an
image of an Israeli child injured in a rocket attack on Sderot:
Jeanne E. Clark 27
__________________________________________________________________
CNN starts their report with a photo of an injured
Palestinian child. But the Palestinian child would not have
been injured if Hamas had not first launched attacks ... 7
In the context of the trauma culture, of an identity rooted in defending the state
against the repetition of the Holocaust, the events of the rockets are necessarily a
serious threat warranting a massive response. The narration is Israeli victimage.
Alexander expresses the questions of narration in creating the trauma culture:
What were the evil and traumatizing actions in question? Who

was responsible? Who were the victims? ... What can be done by
way of remediation or prevention? 8
The evil in this trauma narrative is the threat to life and security posed by
Hamas violence: the Gazans are responsible and Israelis are the victims. B y the
narrative, war is an appropriate response.
This coincides with what Snyder, in a U.S. Army Combat Studies Institute
publication, terms the strategic narrative 9 - the story the military wants told. It is
a culturally appropriate story, a b elievable narrative that meshes with national
values. It justifies the military action thus enabling them to win the information and
ground wars.
The central trauma narrative of Palestinian identity is the Nakba. The formation
of the Israeli state that offers security to the uprooted victims of the Holocaust
produces the trauma of violent dispossession and occupation for the Palestinians.
In 2005, Al-Ahram Weekly concludes that the trauma of al-Nakba is imprinted
on the psyche of every Palestinian, on those that witnessed it as well as those that
did not. 10
In Arces film, the narrative of the Nakba recurs. The essential trauma of
Palestinian identity that still shapes their interaction with Israelis is evoked
repeatedly. A street mural of the Nakba at 60: is seen several times: once as a
commenting background to families who pass in front of it as they walk to escape
the oncoming Israeli army. Wasserman terms the Nakba a trauma of itinerancy or
being uprooted. Gaza, particularly, preserved its refugee status and its peoples
permanent sense of restlessness. 11 Cast Lead renews the trauma of the Nakba as
the refugees are forced to flee again, this time fleeing within an enclosure. The
trauma is intensified by its repetition, by its context of perilous confinement and by
the increased violence of the experience. Having just learned of a three-year-old
boy killed in one neighbourhood, the filmmakers underscore the trauma with one
refugees statement:
__________________________________________________________________
This Nakba is much harder than the first one. In the first Nakba
they were not destroying the people this way. Now shells are
falling on peoples heads. 12
The trauma induced inability to envision a future 13 described by Brisson is

evidenced in the Palestinian witnesses of Cast Lead in the film. One refugee
comments, Only Allah can protect us We are waiting for death. 14
2. Losing a Valued Identity

At the founding of the state of Israel, David Ben-Gurion presented a code of
conduct to guide the state in military matters - tohar ha-neshek or purity of arms.
The doctrine requires a proportional response to violence and humane behaviour in
combat. 15 Concern for civilian rights and safety are central to the code.
The soldier testimony recorded by Breaking the Silence describes action in
direct conflict with that code. The long-treasured identity of the Israeli army as a
force controlled by the practiced of purity of arms, the belief that non-combatants
must be protected and war must be conducted in a just manner, was tarnished in
Cast Lead.
Testimony references white phosphorus used in densely occupied
neighbourhoods, with one soldier exclaiming, it was cool, and wondering why it
was included in their ammunition if they were not supposed to use it. 16 Others
describe civilians routinely used as human shields during neighbourhood clean-up
operations, 17 homes destroyed for no good reason, 18 homes defiled by excrement
and obscene graffiti by occupying soldiers, 19 looting ignored by superior officers 20
and innocents killed because of the loose rules of engagement. 21 They report
commander assertions that there are no innocents, no civilians in this urban war in
Gaza. 22
Some soldiers exhibit discomfort with the events. Witnesses are disturbed by
the way their fellows had dehumanized the people they were attacking. 23 One is
distressed at an officers comment that we have an Arabic speaking grenade
launcher. 24
The identity of the Israeli army as a pure force protecting a secular, democratic
state is seen to shift in Cast Lead. One officer, explaining how the soldiers were to
act in combat, comments in a t one the reporting soldier sees as sarcastic,
Unfortunately were a democracy. 25 Other soldiers report the military rabbis who
presented the war in Crusader terms describing the Palestinians as the Philistines or
the Amalekites, enemies from antiquity who were to be wiped out. The rabbis tell
them there is no accounting for sins in this casewhatever we do is fine. 26 The
cherished identity of purity of arms is abandoned in Gaza.
Jeanne E. Clark 29
__________________________________________________________________
3. Silenced
Both Israeli and Palestinian victims of Cast Lead trauma expressed difficulty
finding effective actors who are willing to acknowledge their sources of trauma
while they are experiencing them. Alexanders discussion of the social construction
of moral universals relating to traumatic events helps explain why this matters. 27
Silencing the objectors devalues and depersonalizes the victims; implicitly what
they see or say is unimportant. The silencing also makes it more difficult to
recognize the source of guilt, the evil, in the trauma situation. Silencing covers over
the social wound leaving the abscess to the social condition below the smothering
bandage.
Israeli soldiers are clearly silenced during the trauma of Cast Lead by their
inability or unwillingness to get their superiors to acknowledge the problem with
the loose rules of engagement. One soldier who raises the matter of the excessive
brutality of the war with his battalion commander is told, Dont let morality
become an issue. That will come up later. The battalion commander admonishes,
Leave the nightmares and horrors that will come up for later, now just shoot. 28
Another soldier is disturbed by his company commanders enthusiastic response
to the killing of an unarmed man who was wandering on the road outside their
house post at night:
When we said he knew the guy had nothing on him and only
holding a torch, he said That doesnt matter. A 50-60 year
old man lying on the road. I felt uneasy about the whole thing,
but knew that it wouldnt do any good to bring it up right there
and confront the company commander in the middle of Gaza.
finally the guys felt that even if they would take this up with
higher echelons, it would be ineffective. 29
After the war, the attempts at silencing continue as the IDF contends: if there
were any moral problems with the war at all, they were on the level of the
delinquent soldier. Breaking the Silence is attacked for publishing the testimony
that demonstrates the guilt and responsibility were systemic issues rather than a
limited matter of rotten apple soldiers. 30
The most poignant silencing of the Palestinians is presented just after a hospital
emergency room sequence. When three young children are struck by missile fire
while playing in Gaza, we see their death. The families rush the dying children to
the hospital and doctors race to care for them, but soon they are carrying the
shrouded bodies to storage. The images are graphic and powerful. A young
photographer talks with an unknown news agency outside of Gaza and tells the
story of the child victims. The agency wants pictures of the war, but not these
pictures; they are deemed too strong. The journalistic ethic censoring disturbing
images is in place. Trauma experienced by victims of the war is silenced for those
__________________________________________________________________
outside the violence. The photographer is left mouthing halting statements that he
will make up the dead. 31
4. Conclusion
Palestinians and Jewish Israelis have long cultural memories of diaspora,
holocaust and war intensified by incidents of terrorism. For both groups, those
memories are as essential to the shaping of their national identities as the land they
both claim. Equally central is the role of victim at the hands of the other as
victimizer.
In the interconnected trauma of the conflicted parties, past violence evokes
value-laden narratives that shape the understanding of and response to current
conflict. Traumatized identity potentially imprisons the future of its victims. As
Wasserman contends: Rather than unfolding and progressing into the future, the
present is saturated with the past; it is ruined with it.
Notes
1
G. Levy, The Punishment of Gaza, Verso, London, 2010, p. viii.
2
A. Arce and M. Rujailah, To Shoot an Elephant, Eguzki Bideoak, 2009.
3
G. Orwell, Shooting an Elephant, New Writing, First Series, No. 2, 1936.
4
Breaking the Silence: Soldiers Testimonies from Operation Cast Lead, Gaza
2009, Breaking the Silence, updated 3.17.2011, viewed on 15 J anuary 2011,
http://www.shovrimshtika.org/publications_e.asp.
5
E. Van Alphen, Symptoms of Discursivity: Experience, Memory, and Trauma,
Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present, M. Bal, J. Crewe and L. Spitzer
(eds), Dartmouth College/University Press of New England, Hanover, 1999, p. 34.
6
T. Wasserman, Intersecting Traumas: The Holocaust, the Palestinian Occupation
and the Work of Israeli Journalist Amira Hass, Culture, Trauma and Conflict:
Cultural Studies Perspectives on War, N. Carpentier (ed), Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, Newcastle, 2007, p. 238.
7
B. Leff, Operation Cast Lead, Neshamah Center, updated 5 April 2011, viewed
on 1 March 2011, http://www.neshamah.net/2008/12/operation-cast.html.
8
J. Alexander, On the Social Construction of Moral Universals: The Holocaust
from War Crime to Trauma Drama, Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, J.
Alexander et al. (eds), University of California Press, Berkeley, 2004, p. 203.
9
M. Snyder, Information Strategies Against a Hybrid Threat: What the Recent
Experience of Israel Versus Hezbollah/Hamas Tell the US Army, Back to Basics:
A Study of the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead, S. Farquhar (ed),
Combat Studies Institute Press, 2009, p. 127.
10
Quoted in E. Webman, The Evolution of a Founding Myth: The Nakba and Its
Fluctuating Meaning, Palestinian Collective Memory and National Identity, M.
Litvak (ed), Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009, p. 41.
Jeanne E. Clark 31
__________________________________________________________________
11
Wasserman, op. cit., p. 157.
12
Arce and Rujailah, op. cit.
13
S. Brison, Trauma Narratives and the Remaking of the Self, Acts of Memory:
Cultural Recall in the Present, M. Bal, J. Crewe and L. Spitzer (eds), Dartmouth
College/University Press of New England, Hanover, 1999, p. 44.
14
Arce and Rujailah, op.cit.
15
E. Dorff and D. Ruttenberg (eds), Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: War and
National Security, Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 2010, p.
50.
16
Breaking the Silence, op. cit., p. 23.
17
Ibid., p. 107.
18
Ibid., pp. 57, 66-67, 69, 73.
19
Ibid., pp. 55, 80, 84, 87, 100.
20
Ibid., p. 81.
21
Ibid., pp. 27, 105-106.
22
Ibid., pp.20, 27.
23
Ibid., pp. 16, 29-30.
24
Ibid., p. 46.
25
Ibid., p. 56.
26
Ibid., p. 39-44.
27
Alexander, op. cit.
28
Breaking the Silence, op. cit., p. 28.
29
Ibid., p. 39.
30
Ibid., p. 5.
31
Arce and Rujailah, op. cit.
Bibliography
Alexander, J., On the Social Construction of Moral Universals: The Holocaust
from War Crime to Trauma Drama. Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. J.
Alexander et al. (eds), University of California Press, Berkeley, 2004.
Arce, A. and Rujailah, M., To Shoot an Elephant. Eguzki Bideoak, 2009.
Breaking the Silence: Soldiers Testimonies from Operation Cast Lead, Gaza 2009.
Breaking the Silence. Updated 3.17.2011. Viewed on 15 J anuary 2011.
http://www.shovrimshtika.org/publications_e.asp.
Brison, S., Trauma Narratives and the Remaking of the Self. Acts of Memory:
Cultural Recall in the Present. Bal, M., Crewe, J. and Spitzer, L. (eds), Dartmouth
College/University Press of New England, Hanover, 1999.
__________________________________________________________________
Dorff, E. and Ruttenberg, D. (eds), Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: War and
National Security. Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 2010.
Leff, B., Operation Cast Lead. Neshamah Center. Updated 5 April 2011. Viewed
on 1 March 2011. http://www.neshamah.net/2008/12/operation-cast.html.
Levy, G., The Punishment of Gaza. Verso, London, 2010.
Orwell, G., Shooting an Elephant. New Writing. First Series, No. 2, 1936.
Snyder, M., Information Strategies Against a Hybrid Threat: What the Recent
Experience of Israel Versus Hezbollah/Hamas Tell the US Army. Back to Basics:
A Study of the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead. Farquhar, S. (ed),
Combat Studies Institute Press, 2009.
Van Alphen, E., Symptoms of Discursivity: Experience, Memory, and Trauma.

Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present. Bal, M., Crewe, J. and Spitzer, L.
(eds), Dartmouth College/University Press of New England, Hanover, 1999.
Wasserman, T., Intersecting Traumas: The Holocaust, the Palestinian Occupation,

and the Work of Israeli Journalist Amira Hass. Culture, Trauma, and Conflict:
Cultural Studies Perspectives on War. Carpentier, N. (ed), Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, Newcastle, 2007.
Webman, E., The Evolution of a Founding Myth: The Nakba and Its Fluctuating
Meaning. Palestinian Collective Memory and National Identity. Litvak, M. (ed),
Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009.
Jeanne E. Clark is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Media Studies at

Willamette University, Salem, Oregon, U.S.A.
Looking at the Iraq War with Eyes Wide Open: Trauma,
Memory and Ethics
Catherine Ann Collins

Abstract
This chapter employs a cas e study of Eyes Wide Open - US community
memorial developed by the American Friends Service Organization. The traveling
exhibition promotes a discourse of trauma - discursive space and language - that
evokes a collective response to personal and cultural costs of the Iraq War. Eyes
Wide Open engages the viewer in memory work by highlighting the traumatized
body that is represented both metonymically and narratively: US military and Iraqi
civilian deaths are represented by hundreds of military boots and well-worn shoes
corresponding to the age of the civilian victim, while at the same time large posters
featuring a photograph and biography of civilians killed in the war and videotaped
messages from military families personalize the trauma of this war. The resulting
painful memories evoked may, in LaCapras terms, become necessary to avoid
covering the wounds that traumatized individuals and nations often employ in
political discussions about war. But an exploration of how the memorial
appropriates the trauma of those fighting and living in war-torn Iraq, albeit for a
good cause - the cessation of a war - raises the broader question about the
relationship between trauma discourse and ethics. The exhibition also challenges
old associations and justificatory memories. Visual arguments connect American
involvement in Iraq with civilian and military trauma, and verbal arguments
presented in the memorial dissociate justificatory actions from 9/11. Eyes Wide
Open offers a significant stepping off point for a discussion of trauma, memory
and cultural discourse about the war in Iraq.
Key Words: Iraq War, trauma, memory, memorial, Eyes Wide Open, metonymy.
*****
1. Introduction
In 2004 The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) created a memorial
to those who died in the Iraq war, Eyes Wide Open. The memorial reflects the
Quaker commitment to pacifism as it seeks to both memorialize those who have
lost their lives in the war and to argue for the cessation of American military
intervention in Iraq. The argument begins with the claim that there is an intolerably
high human cost to the war that should merit the withdrawal of American troops.
To this end, visual and verbal appeals represent, both metonymically and
narratively, the traumatized body of wars victims. This chapter focuses on the
metonymic representation evoking the trauma and the human cost of war through
the visual symbols of combat boots and civilian shoes.
34 Looking at the Iraq War with Eyes Wide Open
__________________________________________________________________
Metonymy entails a sense of reduction, from something that is complex to
something more concrete. While there is significant research on linguistic uses of
metonymy, less attention has been paid to the visual metonym, which this chapter
argues performs the same functions as linguistic metonyms. How do we measure
the loss of a life, whether soldier or civilian, in terms that make that potential life
real to someone else? The worn shoe or boot of the dead is concrete and highly
personal, unlike a statistical fact. This reduction is a form of representation that
links the object with the lost potential of the individual and hence evokes the
response of loss. 1 The metonym can only be partial, a r epresentation, but I will
argue metonyms can move the visitor toward a more authentic working through of
the Iraq War trauma I pursue this argument by examining how this memorial
follows the conventions of war memorials in creating a s pace and discourse for
addressing trauma, and then looking at how the memorials visual metonyms
engage the visitor in directed memory work. Eyes Wide Open offers a significant
stepping off point for a discussion of trauma, memory and cultural discourse about
the war in Iraq.
2. The Artefact
First displayed in Chicago, and now a traveling exhibit, Eyes Wide Open: The
Human Cost of War in Iraq employs the visual symbols of combat boots and
civilian shoes to personalize the human cost of the war. In addition to poster boards
and interviews with military families, the exhibit also contains fact boards about
the economic cost of the war. Additionally, the exhibit includes a wall of flags with
names and brief messages to those who have died, reminiscent of the wall of
names so common to war memorials (e.g. the Vietnam Veterans and Korean War
memorials in Washington DC). The AFSC staffs the memorial and provides
literature, CDs and memorabilia that advocate for peace. Videotapes of military
families traumatized by the death of a relative and questioning the appropriateness
of the war are broadcast on site and available for purchase.
As visitors to the memorial enter the space they follow or step over rows of
worn military boots or civilian shoes. Once inside, there is no single path for
traversing the exhibit as all of the objects are easily reached for casual or intense
surveillance; the visitor must choose how to engage in the memorial. Volunteers
are available to answer questions, provide materials or direct visitors to particular
areas of the exhibit.
The boots and shoes represent individuals who have been killed in the war -
one pair of boots for every American soldier killed and one pair of shoes for about
every 7 t o 10 c ivilians who have died. When the memorial was first shown, 500
pairs of boots were lined up to represent the total US casualties in 2004. When that
number rose to 3 500 in 2007 the exhibit had to be broken up into smaller units.
Individual states now display only the number of pairs of boots of their soldiers
lost in the war alongside a representative collection of shoes symbolizing Iraqi
Catherine Ann Collins 35
__________________________________________________________________
civilians killed. Boots and shoes are labelled with the name and age of the soldier
or civilian they represent. As of December 2010 4 433 US soldiers died in the Iraq
War and over 100 000 civilians had been killed.
Michael McConnell, the creator of the exhibit, explains its purpose:
People say the boots and the wall are powerful and haunting . . .
They look at the tags and say Theyre all so young, or I didnt
realize there were so many. Theres a quote [from Josef Stalin]:
One death is a tragedy, a t housand deaths is a statistic. Our
purpose is to keep a sense of tragedy. 2
What is rhetorically interesting about Eyes Wide Open is the decision to find
a visual symbol to keep the deaths personal rather than a mere statistic for the
American public. The boots and shoes represent a conscious decision on AFSCs
part to counter official efforts to control the American publics response to the war
by denying visualizations of the death toll, e.g. not showing flag draped coffins that
would surely emphasize the human cost of war or the USs decision not to report
Iraqi casualties. The AFSC exhibit visualizes the very evidence that US officials
attempted to manage. McConnell notes: Weve felt all along the human cost of the
war has been hidden from the American public. 3 Everything about the memorial
personalizes the death statistics - from photos to stories to mementos, real people
focus the memorial experience.
Management of visual messages is understandable: visual appeals are
persuasive. News stories without dramatic pictures are slower to appear, receive
less space or prominence and fade more quickly than stories with dramatic visual
representation; dramatic pictures engage an audience and endure over time (the
Tiananmen Square tank, the napalm girl, the plane crashing into the Twin Towers).
These images, especially those that have become iconic, influence by representing
ideology, communicating social knowledge, shaping collective memory, modelling
citizenship, and providing natural resources for communicative action. 4 Visual
images engage an audience in the arguments being made and increase the chance
that these will be retained. These same functions adhere in visual elements of
memorials where they symbolize values, evoke cultural narratives and shape the
creation of collective memory. The boots and shoes of the Eyes Wide Open
memorial are powerful visual metonyms representing the human cost of war - too
many military and civilian lives lost.
3. Memorials and Trauma

Eyes Wide Open is a form of war memorial. As such, it is designed (as have
war memorials since their origin in the classical era of Greece) as a s pace for
mourning those who have died and for finding relief from the trauma of war. They
offer solidarity, expressions of victory, space for grieving and invite a community
__________________________________________________________________
of visitors to remember in particular ways. Both religious and secular, Jay Winter
explains that memorials are sites of symbolic exchange, where the living admit a
degree of indebtedness to their fallen which can never be fully discharged, 5 at the
same time they are highly personal - constructed to help individuals accept the
brutal facts of death in war. 6 War memorials take many forms, from monuments
to architecture, from art to rituals. Some are officially sanctioned and permanent,
others are vernacular and temporary. Never neutral, war memorials help us
negotiate collective memory, since they endure as places and rituals, communities
are consciously made to confront wars that are a part of their history. 7 When the
war is on-going, as in Iraq, memorials to the dead may also challenge the
appropriateness of continuing the war by asking what cost in human life is too
high.
Marita Sturken has argued that since the 1980s, the United States embraced
remembering, and in doing so erected numerous memorials. The memorial culture
of the United States has been largely experienced as a therapeutic culture, in which
the particular citizens, primarily veterans and their families, have been seen as
coming to terms with the past and making peace with difficult memories. 8 The
memorials become sites for working through trauma.
Traumatic events for individuals elicit a haunting, uncontrolled, unpredictable
response. Cathy Caruth explains: the event is not assimilated or experienced fully
at the time, but only belatedly, in its repeated possession of the one who
experiences it. 9 The trauma victim feels that memory controls him or her. While
seemingly unspeakable, traumatic events, nonetheless, demand a rhetorical
response. In LaCapras terms, a rhetorical response that helps one work through
rather than just act out the trauma is what is needed: acting out occurs when one is
haunted or possessed by the past and performatively caught up in the compulsion
repetition of traumatic scenes. 10 Working through comes when one is able to
respond to the trauma, if not in control, at least out of a sense of agency, no matter
how slight. For example, Vietnam War Veterans argued that until ones service
was recognized and valorised through The Wall in Washington D.C. their personal
(and national) healing could not occur.
Memorials are a way of attempting closure to a traumatic memory, of bridging
the haunting past of loss and the imagined future and of giving space for the
possibility of working through the traumatic event.
Scholarship has linked war trauma with temporary memorials created by family
and friends, who feel compelled to establish a p lace and way to remember those
who have died. Arredondo, for example, created a spontaneous memorial to honour
his son killed in Iraq: Carlos used the process of creating, assembling, and
displaying the memorial to help him deal with the overwhelming feelings of loss
and despair. 11 The trauma of direct experience with a ca tastrophic event, like
Carloss, can be extended to collective trauma resulting from national events in
which the traumatic response extends to individuals who have not directly
__________________________________________________________________
experienced it or even personally known someone who died (consider the
American publics response to 9/11). The same haunting exists as well as a need to
relieve that experience - anything to gain a sense of control. MacLeish argues that
memorials constitute an effort to come to terms with the dead, with the chaos and
disaster of history, against the impulse to keep looking forward, to be swept along
by progress, and so to forget. 12 Working through an experience allows the
possibility of recuperating from trauma. Memorials, spontaneous or official, offer a
place for dealing with the trauma, a way to give oneself a sense of control.
4. The Use of Metonymic Representation in Eyes Wide Open

Eyes Wide Open provides a space for working through the human cost of the
Iraq War. It does so most noticeably through visual metonyms - shoes and boots -
that offer perspective by reducing the domain - e.g., the boots stand in substitution
for the larger soldier who has died - and through expansion of the domain - from
the death of soldiers or civilians to the unacceptably high human cost of war. 13 As
viewers, we understand the substitution precisely because we apprehend the
specific perspective: because of the George W. Bush administrations reluctance to
allow the media access to photo opportunities of returning caskets, boots and shoes
become a substitute that cannot be managed by the Administration; they are in
Forcevilles terms metonyms that can be identified sui generis. 14
In Eyes Wide Open, the boots and shoes are visual metonyms that can be
identified without explanation, yet they are personalized with tags identifying the
name and age of the soldier or civilian embodied by the boots/shoes. Words and
objects interanimate one another in the verbal tagging and metonymic
representation in the memorial. 15 Further individuation occurs when offerings are
tucked into the shoes by visitors to the memorial - letters from friends or family, a
teddy bear or photograph. It is similarly important that the boots and shoes are
worn, for as such they reflect a life lived, the absence of a real person. This is more
powerful symbolically, MacLeish argues, than the less personalized crosses or
flags for each dead soldier: The corporeal absence evoked by the boots suggests a
haunting incompleteness, though - the person who once occupied them is simply
gone. 16 The boots/shoes can represent the persons death without offering details,
while still arguing forcefully that the cost of war is the death of real people, In
effect, the metonymic representation challenges politicized labels - enemies,
terrorists or even soldiers or civilians - that de-intensify the loss, and in their
place privilege a re-personalization of each life lost.
James Young, writing about Holocaust memorials, reminds us that in bringing
different formal qualities to bear on memory, every memorial text generates a
different meaning in memory. 17 Regardless of form, memorial sites, temporary or
permanent, are performative: who visits and how they interact with and within the
site changes the creation of memory for that individual and other visitors to the
__________________________________________________________________
site. Memory, Young concluded, is never monolithic, never stands still and is
always subject to contestation. 18
Thus more broadly the single name, boot or shoe calls forth the much larger
traumatic loss from the war in Iraq. The circle of pain is problematic when one of
the justifications America makes for military intervention is to help civilians
innocently caught up in the evil of a corrupt leader or faction. The viewers move
from iconic boots and the immediate patriotic response of support for the troops to
the loss of civilians (at least ten times greater than the loss of soldiers) and that
justification for supporting the war is contested.
Eyes Wide Open challenges the official descriptions of war and the patriotic
commemoration that bestows honour on those who die in service to their country.
The AFSC memorial does not dishonour the fallen soldier, but it also does not
allow their death to be glossed over in patriotic proclamations of duty and courage
that de facto justify the war. The exhibit tries to force the viewer to confront real
loss as a cost of war. The rows of footwear, the large photographs of civilians who
have died, the flags with handwritten messages to loved ones all make the death
personal, not just an unfortunate by-product of war.
In visiting war memorials, Americans feel authentically close to an event 19 as
well as encouraged to take a subject position of innocence and a nave citizenship
based on victimage rather than national aggression. It is this kind of positioning
that the AFSCs Eyes Wide Open exhibit challenges. The boots alone, as
symbolic of the human cost of war might well reinforce this position. But the boots
cannot be seen or inspected without encountering the civilian shoes, booties and
flip flops representing innocent Iraqi lives lost. The neat division of the world into
good and evil, terrorist and innocent American victim is visually challenged.
5. Conclusion
Metonymic representation through the boots and shoes individuates the human
cost of war. The metonymic evocation in Eyes Wide Open is far more traumatic
than the abstract gains and losses. Stewart explains that metonyms are powerful
precisely because they focus on perception - what something is, rather than how
meaning is to be sorted out. 20 Whether we are winning or losing the war, whether
the war is just or necessary are not the questions raised by the metonym. Instead,
the focus is on, in Sturkens terms, a widening circle of pain 21 emanating from
the boots/shoes as we imagine family and friends grieving because of the war.
Eyes Wide Open promotes a discourse of trauma - a discursive space and
language - that evokes a collective response to the personal and cultural cost of the
Iraq War.
__________________________________________________________________
Notes
1
K. Burke, A Grammar of Motives, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1969,
p. 507.
2
D. Hanley, Eyes Wide Open: The Human Cost of War in Iraq, Washington
Report on Middle East Affairs, July-August 2004, p. 14.
3
Ibid.
4
R. Hariman and J.L. Lucaites, No Caption Needed, Chicago University of
Chicago Press, 2007, p. 9.
5
J. Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1995, p. 94.
6
Ibid.
7
J. Mayo, War Memorials as Political Landscape, Praeger, New York, 1988, p.
11.
8
M. Sturkin, Tourists of History, Durham, NC Duke University Press, 2007, p. 14.
9
C. Caruth, Trauma: Explorations in Memory, Johns Hopkins University Press,
Baltimore, 1995, pp. 4-5.
10
D. LaCapra, op. cit., p. 21.
11
L. Pershing and N. Bellinger, From Sorrow to Activisim, Journal of American
Folklore, Vol. 123, No. 488, Spring 2010, p. 179.
12
K. MacLeish, The Tense Present History of the Second Gulf War: Revelation
and Repression in Memorialization, Text, Practice, Performance, Vol. 6, 2005, p.
71.
13
C. Forceville, Metonymy in Visual and Audiovisual Discourse, The World
Told and the World Shown, E. Ventola (ed), Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009,
p. 58.
14
Ibid., p. 62.
15
I.A. Richards, The Philosophy of Literary Form, Oxford University Press, New
York, 1965, p. 47.
16
K. MacLeish, op. cit., p. 77.
17
J.E. Young, The Texture of Memory, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1993,
p. viii.
18
Ibid., p. x.
19
M. Sturkin, op. cit., p. 12.
20
J. Stewart, Objects in Space and Time: Metonymy in Durrells Island Books,
Style, Vol. 34, No. 1, 2000, p. 88.
21
M. Sturken, Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the
Politics of Remembering, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997, p. 58.
__________________________________________________________________
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Caruth, C., Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Johns Hopkins University Press,

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and the World Shown. Ventola, E. (ed), Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009.
Hanley, D., Eyes Wide Open: The Human Cost of War in Iraq. Washington
Report on Middle East Affairs. July-August 2004, pp. 14-16.
Hariman, R. and Lucaites, J.L., No Caption Needed. Chicago University of

Chicago Press, 2007.
LaCapra, D., Writing History, Writing Trauma. The Johns Hopkins University
Press, Baltimore, 2001.
MacLeish, K., The Tense Present History of the Second Gulf War: Revelation and
Repression in Memorialization. Text, Practice, Performance. Vol. 6, 2005, pp. 69-
84.
Mayo, J., War Memorials as Political Landscape. Praeger, New York, 1988.
Pershing, L. and Bellinger, N., From Sorrow to Activisim. Journal of American

Folklore. Vol. 123, No. 488, Spring 2010, pp. 179-217.
Richards, I. A., The Philosophy of Literary Form. Oxford University Press, New
York, 1965.
Stewart, J., Objects in Space and Time: Metonymy in Durrells Island Books.
Style. Vol. 34, No. 1, 2000.
Sturken, M., Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic and the
Politics of Remembering. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997.
, Tourists of History. Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2007.
Winter, J., Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning. Cambridge University Press,

Cambridge, 1995.
__________________________________________________________________
Young, J.E., The Texture of Memory. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1993.
Catherine Ann Collins is a Professor of Rhetoric and Media Studies at Willamette

University. She received her PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1977. She
writes and teaches in the areas of visual rhetoric, the rhetoric of war, memory and
memorials and media framing. Her most recent works on trauma theory include:
When Places Have Agency: Roadside Shrines as Traumascapes co-authored with
Alexandra Opie. Reprinted in M. Broderick and A. Traverso (eds.), Interrogating
Trauma: Collective Suffering in Global Arts and Media, Routledge, New York,
2011, pp. 107-118; and Media and Memorializing: Requiem by the Photographers
who Died in Vietnam and Indochina, in Y. Pasadeos (ed.), Advances in
Communication and Mass Media Research, Athens, Greece, ATINER, 2010, pp.
553-564.
Be Careful with that Trauma, Christoph: Schlingensiefs
Dissensual Staging of the Unrepresentable
Janus Currie
Abstract
Trauma is often characterised as an intrusive and unwanted return of mental
images caused by the experience of an overwhelming event. In recent years, the
artistic response to, and public mediation of this process of return is frequently
theorised through the conceptual rubric of unrepresentability. The idea of
unrepresentability connotes that art lacks the appropriate language and form to
represent the exceptional nature of the traumatic event. The issue of
unrepresentability provides the starting point from which this chapter will explore
the remediation of historic trauma in contemporary aesthetic practice which
attempts to challenge current systems of exclusion. It will focus on two
actions/public performances, Chance 2000 (1998) and Foreigners Out (2000) by
German filmmaker, theatre director and performance artist Christoph Schlingensief
to explore artistic intervention in contemporary modes of exclusion. It will
examine how his reproduction of that which is considered unrepresentable (e.g. the
concentration camps) is utilised to represent those who are unrepresented,
excluded and rendered invisible within dominant public discourse (such as asylum-
seekers and refugees). I will explore how Schlingensiefs work draws parallels
between and over-identifies with the political language of contemporary exclusion
and that of a r epressed National Socialist past. Chance 2000 will be discussed
primarily as a means to extrapolate how Schlingensief conceptualizes current
systems of exclusion, while Foreigners Out is focused on the remediation of
historic trauma. These works are examined within the framework of philosopher
Jacques Rancires aesthetico-political concept of dissensus.
Key Words: Christoph Schlingensief, exclusion, asylum-seekers, dissensus,

Jacques Rancire, trauma, unrepresentability.
*****
Trauma is often characterised as an intrusive and unwanted return of mental

images caused by the experience of an overwhelming event. In recent years, the
artistic response to, and public mediation of this process of return is frequently
theorised through the conceptual rubric of unrepresentability. The idea of
unrepresentability connotes that art lacks the appropriate language and form to
represent the exceptional nature of the traumatic event. The issue of
unrepresentability provides the starting point from which this chapter will explore
the remediation of historic trauma in contemporary aesthetic practice which
attempts to challenge current systems of exclusion. It will focus on two
44 Be Careful with that Trauma, Christoph
__________________________________________________________________
actions/public performances, Chance 2000 (1998) and Foreigners Out (2000) by
German filmmaker, theatre director and performance artist Christoph Schlingensief
to explore artistic intervention in contemporary modes of exclusion. I intend to
illustrate how his reproduction of that which is considered unrepresentable (e.g. the
concentration camps) is utilised to represent those who are unrepresented,
excluded and rendered invisible within dominant public discourse (such as asylum-
seekers and refugees). I will explore how Schlingensiefs work draws parallels
between and over-identifies with the political language of contemporary exclusion
and that of a repressed National Socialist past. I will discuss Chance 2000
primarily as a means to extrapolate how Schlingensief conceptualizes current
systems of exclusion, and focus on Foreigners Out more specifically in relation to
the remediation of historic trauma. These works are examined within the
framework of philosopher Jacques Rancires aesthetico-political concept of
dissensus.
The idea of unrepresentability has a long history within a Western art tradition.
Moses ban on representation, or Malevichs White Square on White Background,
to depictions of the Holocaust, all, as Jacques Rancire argues, are subsumed under
the concept of unrepresentability that pervades writing on contemporary visual
culture. 1 Indeed, the discourses of unrepresentability and unspeakability are
particularly prominent in writing that has emerged from studies and depictions of
and around the Holocaust. Many of these works contend that certain events are too
unfathomable or horrible to warrant representation, especially fictional
representation. Exemplifying such a position, Theodore Adorno famously went as
far as to suggest that: writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. 2 Since the mid
1990s the work of authors such as Cathy Caruth, Shoshana Felman and Dominick
LaCapra, have dominated theoretical discussions about the reproduction and
remediation of trauma and through these studies the idea of unrepresentability has
been at the forefront of trauma studies discourse. 3 Schlingensiefs work takes this
art and media concept of unrepresentability, particularly in relation to the
holocaust, as somewhat of a given, as something that is now firmly entrenched
within art discourse. However, what his performances demonstrate is that due to
political necessity, notably in the case of Foreigners Out, the idea of
unrepresentability must be mobilized to represent those who are excluded from the
so-called democratic and inclusive public sphere.
Through his conceptualisation of the police Rancire critiques the rhetoric of
inclusive consensus-driven democracy propagated by many states, as, for Rancire,
consensus is the very thing that suppresses political subjectification. The notion of
the police (not to be confused with the regular police force) suggests a system of
implicit general laws and historically formed discourses that define and allocate
certain roles within society (who can legitimately do or say a particular thing and
when). 4 Rancire argues that logic of the police and its systems of distribution not
only supports participation and inclusion within a community but also legitimates
Janus Currie 45
__________________________________________________________________
the separation and exclusion of those who fall outside the presupposition of the
shared common of the community. It is a system of distribution and management
(what he calls a distribution of the sensible), upon which the general laws of this
shared common are based: it legitimises particular modes of being, doing,
making, seeing, speaking and acting. 5 Rancire contends that politics, in its basic
sense, occurs when there is a place and a way for two heterogeneous processes to
meet, 6 and therefore argues that consensus comes to represent a disappearance of
politics. Accordingly, political subjectification occurs when those who have no
part (who do n ot count as speaking beings) in the shared common of the
community take part and speak in this community, which disrupts the police order
and gives rise to politics. This is what Rancire calls a process of dissensus.
Schlingensief has stated that art ought to be more political and politics more
artful 7 and indeed the idea of dissensus itself is in equal part aesthetic as it is
political. Aesthetics, for Rancire is political as it is a delimitation of spaces and
times of the visible and the invisible, of speech and noise that simultaneously
determines the place and the stakes of politics as a form of experience. 8
Accordingly, artistic intervention can be political by modifying the visible, the
ways of perceiving it, expressing it, and experiencing it. 9 Aesthetic practice can
therefore potentially create a shift in public consciousness concerning how we see,
what is seen, who can legitimately say this is what is seen. 10 So what I argue here
is that dissensus, in the context of this project, is conceptualized as an aesthetic
practice that re-examines discursive boundaries of art and politics in order to
encourage a reversal of perspective.
Schlingensiefs work consistently endeavours to interrogate the discursive
boundaries of art and politics and the limits of a liberal, inclusive public sphere. In
1998 he created, in cooperation with the Volksbuhne theatre in Berlin, an election
campaign circus - Chance 2000 - The Party of the Last Chance which paralleled
the German federal election campaigns. The Chance 2000 party invited the
unemployed, the mentally ill and physically disabled (among others) to become
candidates for the upcoming election. Under the banner vote for yourself
members were given the opportunity to put themselves forward as party candidates
(and vote for themselves) instead of voting for members of political parties and
allowing them to speak on their behalf. This project spanned several months and
involved at least five distinct phases or campaign type actions. However, what is of
interest to me here is the theoretical underpinning that Schlingensief devised to
explore the implicitly exclusionary mechanisms of certain public places. 11
Schlingensief developed an idea he labelled Systems Theory to help explore
these mechanisms. He differentiates between System 1 - the discourses produced
by those involved in, to name a few, political parties, the art system and the mass
media - and System 2, those who are excluded from the discourses of System 1,
such as the disabled, refugees and asylum seekers. 12 The aim of Schlingensiefs
Systems Theory and Chance 2000 was to push the excluded citizens of System 2
__________________________________________________________________
into a third system, one in which they were visible and audible and could thus
challenge the discourses of the dominant system without being subsumed into it. 13
Thus, Chance 2000 was a dissensual project as it both attempted to foster political
subjectification and modify politics as a form of experience.
Foreigners Out, like Chance 2000, also endeavoured to challenge the
mechanisms of exclusion present in the inclusive public sphere by dealing with
the unrepresented, but did so by explicitly engaging with the historic trauma of the
concentrations camps and thus more directly with the notion of unrepresentability.
Schlingensief attempted to intervene in the political landscape of the time and
create a s pace that fostered dissensus and the meeting, or perhaps in this case
collision, of heterogeneous voices. The event was staged from 11 June till 17 June
2000 as part of the Vienna Festival. Twelve asylum-seekers were confined in a
series of containers that formed makeshift rooms, which were located in a central
square (Herbert-von-Karajan-Platz) in Vienna. Above the containers a large sign
with the words Foreigners Out was visible. Six cameras were set up throughout
the containers and monitored the participants activities and daily routines and the
footage was broadcast live via Internet television. Tabloid-style profiles of the
participants were also posted on the Foreigners Out website. The format overtly
mimics that of the highly popular reality television show Big Brother to the extent
that all but one of the participants are supposed to be eliminated or voted out of
the container, yet instead of merely leaving the show the asylum seekers must
leave Austria. The first season of Big Brother Germany ended its run only two
days before the commencement of the project so the idea was particularly fresh in
the publics imagination. To work in the format of Big Brother, the event required
the involvement of the Viennese public, which it received, as 80,000 people voted
during the weeklong event. 14 The documentary Auslnder Raus! Schlingensiefs
Container (Paul Poet, 2002), which was conceptually designed by Schlingensief,
provides extensive coverage of the weeklong event. Indeed, the documentary was
conceptualised as part of the project itself, an extension of it, rather than a neutral
observation of the event.
The inauguration of the far right anti-immigration party, the Freedom Party of
Austria, into the Austrian government provided the catalyst for staging the event.
Luc Bondy, the director of the 2000 Vienna Arts Festival, had invited
Schlingensief to create a work that would demonstrate the Viennese art
communitys opposition to the Freedom Partys place in the government. 15 One of
the Freedom Partys major platforms was and still is the prevention of cultural and
national contamination from immigration and asylum abuse. Founding members
of the party, which formed in 1956, were former National Socialists and many
party slogans echo those of Nazism. For instance, a popular question that then
leader Jrg Haider often posed was whether it is necessary to have 140,000
unemployed and 180,000 immigrant workers which reads much like the Nazi
posters which stated 500,000 unemployed - 400,000 Jews: The solution is easy. 16
Janus Currie 47
__________________________________________________________________
The Freedom Party also revitalized the Nazi-era slogan Stop Over-foreignization
(uberfremdung).
Trauma is often theorised in relation to the idea of a return, and Foreigners Out
links this idea associated with a traumatic return to a return within a historically
and politically specific context. Freud suggested that the uncanny is actually
nothing new or strange, but something that was long familiar to the psyche and was
estranged from it only through being repressed. 17 Indeed, it is through the return
of the repressed that a potent manifestation of the uncanny emerges. In The
Meaning of Sarkozy Alain Badiou discusses the concept of the uncanny in relation
to French history. 18 His reworking of the uncanny here suggests that the repressed
elements of the historico-political past can return reconfigured in contemporary
political life. Foreigners Out deals with this same return in a context specific to
Austria. It critiques the idea of Anschluss, a term coined to refer to the political
union of Austria with Nazi-Germany, the term also implies that Austrians were
not really responsible for their endorsement of National Socialism. 19
Schlingensiefs project endeavours to represent how this inability of Austrian
society to take responsibility for their part in Nazism is manifested in the
xenophobic politics of the Freedom Party today. Schlingensief suggests that in the
project he was producing images that simply take Freedom Party leader Jrg
Haider and his slogans at their word. 20 The containers in which the asylum-
seekers were housed, and which Schlingesief proclaims were interactive
concentration-camps, clearly refer to the confinement of ethnic minorities by the
National Socialists, but also allude to the conditions in which refugees are confined
in the deportation/detention centre on the outskirts of Vienna. By placing the
concentration-camp-containers in the central square in Vienna, adjacent to the
opera house, Schlingensief is also inferring that traces of this shameful feature of
Nazism still play a part in Austrian culture and public life.
Giorgio Agamben suggests that the camp is the hidden matrix and nomos of
the political space in which we are still living. 21 And although Schlingensiefs
project is most certainly intentionally ghosted by the spectre of Nazi concentration
camps 22 the re-emergence of the camp as a legitimate practice in exceptional
circumstances has been galvanized in recent years by images from and state-
sanctioned exclusion practiced at places such as Guantnamo Bay. The camp,
described by Agamben as a zone of irreducible indistinction 23 that reduces its
inhabitants to a state of bare life is an exemplar of the unrepresentable horror
committed under National Socialism but also a symbol of the politics the exclusion
of twenty-first century democracies. As Richard Langston suggests of Foreigners
Out: Playing the game of exclusion in the streets of Vienna thus made palpable
not only the contemporary politics of exclusion touted by Haider but also its
historical precedent, the culmination of modern biopolitics. 24 Schlingensiefs
interactive-concentration-camps were thus reproductions of that which is widely
__________________________________________________________________
considered unrepresentable to foreground what must be spoken about in
contemporary political discourse.
By utilising the discourse of unrepresentability to represent those usually
excluded, Schlingensief created a dissensual space in which heterogeneous voices
could disrupt, for a time, the consensual hegemony of the existing police order. As
I mentioned earlier, the self-proclaimed premise of Schlingensiefs artistic practice
is that art should be more political and politics more artistic. His works Chance
2000 and Foreigners Out demonstrate the Rancirian contention that politics can
be aesthetic and aesthetics political as they both potentially enable a
reconfiguration of what is perceived as visible and audible in the shared common
of the community. In both its embodiment of the historic return of repressed
trauma and the interactive concentration camps very physical intervention into
the daily experience of the Viennese public, Schlingensiefs Foreigners Out
worked to create a gap in the distribution of the sensible, to render visible that
which is not normally seen, by plac[ing] one world in another 25 Indeed, as
Rancire argues: the Police order is always at once a system of circulation and a
system of borders [a]nd the practice of dissensus is always a practice that both
crosses boundaries and stops traffic. 26 For Schlingensief, staging the
unrepresentable through remediating historic trauma is an effective method
through which to spark critical debate about, and a reconfiguring of the public
perception of contemporary exclusionary practice.
Notes
1
J. Rancire, The Future of the Image, trans. G. Elliott, Verso, London & New
York, 2007, p. 109.
2
T. Adorno, Prisms, trans. S. Weber, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1981, p. 34.
3
See for example: C. Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and
History, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1996., S Felman, The
Juridical Unconscious: Trials and Traumas in the Twentieth Century, Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, 2002; D. LaCapra, Writing History, Writing Trauma,
Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2001.
4
J. Rancire, Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy, trans. J. Rose, University of
Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1999, p. 26.
5
J. Rancire, The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible, trans. G.
Rockhill, Continuum London, 2006, p. 13.
6
Rancire, Disagreement, p. 28.
7
S. Gade, Putting the Public Sphere to the Test: On Public and Counter-Publics in
Chance 2000, Christoph Schlingensief: Art Without Borders, T. Forrest and A.
Scheer (eds), Intellect, Bristol & Chicago, 2010, p. 89.
8
Rancire, The Politics of Aesthetics, p. 13.
Janus Currie 49
__________________________________________________________________
9
J. Rancire, Art of the Possible: Fulvia Carnevale and John Kelsey in
Conversation with Jacques Rancire, Artforum, March 2007, p. 259.
10
R. Porter, Distribution of the Sensible, Variant 30, 2007, p. 17.
11
Gade, Putting the Public Sphere to the Test, p. 92.
12
Ibid.
13
Ibid.
14
K. Weiss, Recycling the Image of the Public Sphere in Art, Massachusettes
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, viewed on 15 December 2010,
http://architecture.mit.edu/thresholds/issue-contents/23/weiss23/weiss23.htm.
15
D. Varney, Right Now Austria Looks Ridiculous: Please Love Austria!
Reforming the Interaction between Art and Politics, Christoph Schlingensief: Art
without Borders, T. Forrest and A. Scheer (eds), Intellect, Bristol & Chicago, 2010,
p. 109.
16
R. Grnter, The FP, Foreigners and Racism in the Haider Era, The Haider
Phenomenon in Austria, R. Wodak and A. Pelinka (eds), Transaction Publishers,
Somerset, 2003, p. 19.
17
S. Freud, The Uncanny, trans. D. McLintock, Penguin Books, New York, 2003,
p. 148.
18
A. Badiou, The Meaning of Sarkozy, trans. D. Fernbach, Verso, London & New
York, 2008, p. 85.
19
Weiss, Recycling the Image of the Public Sphere in Art.
20
Auslnder Raus! Schlingensiefs Container, DVD, Monitorpop, Berlin, 2002.
21
G. Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. D. Heller-
Roazen, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1998, p. 166.
22
Varney, Right Now Austria Looks Ridiculous, p. 117.
23
Agamben, Homo Sacer, p. 9.
24
R. Langston, Schlingensiefs Peep-Show: Post-Cinematic Spectacles and the
Public Space of History, After the Avant-Garde: Contemporary German and
Austrian Experimental Film, R. Halle and R. Steinver (eds), Camden House,
Rochester, 2008, p. 219.
25
J. Rancire, Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, trans. S. Corcoran,
Continuum, London & New York, 2010, p. 38.
26
Rancire, Art of the Possible, p. 263.
Bibliography
Agamben, G., Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Trans. Heller-Roazen,
D., Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1998.
Adorno, T., Prisms. Trans. Weber, S., MIT Press, Cambridge, 1981.
__________________________________________________________________
Badiou, A., The Meaning of Sarkozy. Trans. Fernbach, D., Verso, London & New
York, 2008.
Caruth, C., Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Johns

Felman, S., The Juridical Unconscious: Trials and Traumas in the Twentieth
Century. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2002.
Freud S., The Uncanny. Trans. McLintock, D., Penguin Books, New York, 2003.
Gade, S., Putting the Public Sphere to the Test: On Public and Counter-Publics in
Chance 2000. Christoph Schlingensief: Art without Borders, Forrest, T. and
Scheer, A. (eds), Intellect, Bristol & Chicago, 2010.
Grnter R., The FP, Foreigners and Racism in the Haider Era. The Haider
Phenomenon in Austria. Wodak, R. and Pelinka, A. (eds), Transaction Publishers,
Somerset, 2003.
LaCapra, D., Writing History, Writing Trauma. Johns Hopkins University Press,
Baltimore, 2001.
Langston R., Schlingensiefs Peep-Show: Post-Cinematic Spectacles and the

Public Space of History. After the Avant-Garde: Contemporary German and
Austrian Experimental Film. Halle, R. and Steinver, R. (eds), Camden House,
Rochester, 2008.
Porter R., Distribution of the Sensible. Variant. Vol. 30, 2007, pp.17-18.
Rancire, J., Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy. Trans. Rose, J., University of
Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1999.
Rancire, J., The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. Trans.
Rockhill, G., Continuum London, 2006.
Rancire, J., Art of the Possible: Fulvia Carnevale and John Kelsey in
Conversation with Jacques Rancire. Artforum. March 2007, pp. 256-269.
Rancire, J., The Future of the Image. Trans. Elliott, G., Verso, London & New
York, 2007.
Janus Currie 51
__________________________________________________________________
Rancire, J., Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics. Trans. Corcoran, S.,

Continuum, London & New York, 2010.
Varney D., Right Now Austria Looks Ridiculous: Please Love Austria!
Reforming the Interaction between Art and Politics. Christoph Schlingensief: Art
without Borders. Forrest, T. and Scheer, A. (eds), Intellect, Bristol & Chicago,
2010.
Weiss, K., Recycling the Image of the Public Sphere in Art. Massachusettes
Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Viewed on 15 December 2010.
http://architecture.mit.edu/thresholds/issue-contents/23/weiss23/weiss23.htm.
Auslnder Raus! Schlingensiefs Container. DVD, Monitorpop, Berlin, 2002.
Janus Currie is a P hD student in the Film, Television and Media Department at

the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Email: Janus_currie@yahoo.com
Etiquette of Grief
Ellie Harrison
Matt Tullett/photographydept.com 2010
Abstract
Once I went to a f uneral and I was one of the first people to arrive at the wake.
What the caterers had done was put a CD of people talking on so there wouldnt be
any awkward silence. I thought the CD was a great idea. It reminded me of
professional mourners; youd get them in like hired event planners to marshal and
co-ordinate peoples expressions of grief. They would use a rhythm setting
tambourine but I think the CD was good too...
Key Words: Grief, personal, funeral, celebration, public, national, rules.
*****
1. Etiquette of Grief
Etiquette of Grief is a solo performance exploring bereavement in relation to
individual and collective identity. The performance examines historic events and
asks how the mediatised deaths of the famous, impact upon the civilian in everyday
life. Etiquette of Grief is the first part of a broader project of study entitled The
Grief Series. The series of works correlate to the seven stage grief model used in
popular psychology and provide seven opportunities to collaborate with artists
working in different disciplines such as film, interactive web project, durational
54 Etiquette of Grief
__________________________________________________________________
performance and photography. Combining the autobiographical with academic
research into art and trauma, the performance seeks to question notions of public
and private space. Is there a time and a place for displays of extreme emotion, and
if so, when do t hese arise? How do we remember the dead and how does
bereavement influence ones sense of self?
How might the bereaved articulate the private experience of grief in public,
work and social space? How might a b ereaved person relay news of the death to
friends, family and colleagues? At a time of personal crisis, where emotions can be
complex, conflicting and raw, the bereaved are often expected to be more than
usually articulate and communicative. How might a bereaved person overcome the
fear of social awkwardness and break the silence surrounding the subject matter?
In the context of the live performance, Ellie invites an expert in the field to advise
her on how best to communicate her grief to the audience. Whilst acknowledging
the complexity and depth of the subject matter, the work aims to be playful,
challenging and accessible, leaving space for the audiences thoughts feelings and
memories. I would like the audience both here and at the live event to become
witnesses. As Etchells suggests,
to witness an event is to be present at it i n some fundamentally

ethical way, to feel the weight of things and ones own place in
them, even if that place is simply, for that moment, as an
onlooker. Witnessing allows the dead, the disappeared, the lost,
to continue to live as we rediscover their force in our ongoing
present. 1
2. Performance
The following are selected excerpts from the script as a trace or remnant of the
live event. The performance, like life, cannot be held on to, refusing to stay in one
place. This is both frustrating and delighting.
Ellie:
Im here today because Ive lost someone very dear to me and

although its been thirteen years since her death, I still havent
got over it. She was funny, intelligent and beautiful but above all
kind, caring and compassionate to those around her. Whenever
something bad happened to her, when the divorce came through,
she kept going, she persevered. Ive tried to be like that but I
dont know if I can be because life isnt the same without her.
Simple tasks become difficult like getting out of bed, getting
dressed in the morning and remembering to eat at meal times. I
just cant stop thinking about her trapped in that dark place ... I
Ellie Harrison 55
__________________________________________________________________
know Im not the only one grieving. I know that when she died I
wasnt the only one left behind, Im sure the boys feel the same
... I try to focus on the happy memories, that day on the log
flume, or just her dancing and having fun. She had that black
dress that flared out when she danced. Ive got that great picture
of her at the Michael Jackson concert looking all giddy. People
didnt appreciate her when she was alive but now they realise that
a great light has gone out. For all of us who miss her and just
cant get over it, Ive held this memorial.
Its really heartening that you are reading this now, for me to
know that Im not alone, that you are struggling with your grief
as much as I am.
I thought a minute silence would be a good way of us all getting

into the right head space. But then I thought silence can be a bit
awkward and also a bit boring.
Ive called in a specialist via video link to help us through our

grief so that we start in the right frame of mind. Eleanor is very
dynamic; shes sort of the Gillian McKeith of bereavement
therapy. In fact, when I lost my ... sorry anyway, weve become
quite good friends and I hope youll make her feel really
welcome.
Ellie turns to face a l arge screen where a v ideo link to Eleanor, the bereavement
expert, fades into view.
Eleanor:
When you tell people about your bereavement, try and be

sensitive to the needs of others. It can be difficult for everyone
involved and people dont usually know what to say when you
tell them. Avoid saying things like they are dead as this can
seem too brutal and create an awkward silence. Instead use
phrases like late, passed away or they are no longer with us.
People are likely to have more physical contact with you around
this time and may hug and kiss you more. Therefore it is vital to
always take care to be clean, well presented and smelling nice.
Carry mints and deodorant, as you never know when you might
bump into someone who might want to offer their condolences.
__________________________________________________________________
If you have lost someone very close to you, you will need to find
ways of reinforcing or creating new support networks to help fill
the gap left by your loved one. As well as a time for sadness, the
funeral can be a fantastic social occasion and the perfect time to
reconnect with friends and relatives you may not have seen for a
while. Make sure you are warm and pleasant at the wake. After
all, you may need support from these people and dont want to
alienate them or make them feel embarrassed. Make sure
everyone has sandwiches and a hot drink.
Before the service make sure that you make cards to say thank
you to people who send flowers. This way, as soon as you return
from the wake, you can write peoples names in and can pop
them in the post the same day. After all, you will need something
to keep yourself occupied in the evenings. There is no time like
the present.
Throw yourself into work or a project you feel enthusiastic about.

Give yourself a reason to get up in the morning. I like to make
table centre pieces because it is a cr eative way of dealing with
my feelings whilst also giving endless pleasure to others.
Ellie Harrison 57
__________________________________________________________________
A tip for people who have lost a member of their immediate
family: if you do decide to give your loved ones things away to
charity, do make sure that you donate to organisations outside
your local area as the last thing you want is to see is a display of
the deceaseds clothes in a s hop window as you walk down the
high street. Well I hope thats been really useful!
Here are some tips for the audience on how to deal with a
bereaved person. If you hear someone crying, then the best thing
to do is give them a firm hug and tell them to ssh. Try giving
them a hug and telling them Itll be alright and perhaps even a
sturdy pat on the back.
If they continue to cry, explain to the grieving person that they

have to take the rough with the smooth. Perhaps you could give
an example of difficulty from your own life. For example, when
my car broke down last year I just had to accept it and buy a new
one. If they are still crying, go into another room and turn your
music up loud. This sends a clear message to the grieving person
that they need to move on.
If all else fails stop calling them, asking how they are and
generally avoid them. And remember, its not your fault that they
are grieving.
Delegate the responsibility for caring for the flowers you have
received. You dont want to wake up one morning to realise you
are surrounded by dead flowers everywhere, like your home is
filled with death and decay. Sometimes when people die, friends
often erase their name from their address book and if youre not
careful this can mean you get erased too. Make sure you
reconnect with friends of the departed. Your first Christmas
without your loved one is always tough but will seem ten times
worse if all the people who usually send you presents have
deleted your address and you receive nothing.
Remember what the leaflet said:
Grow up! Give me patience to accept the things I cannot

change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to
know the difference.
__________________________________________________________________
Smile and keep pruning the tree of worry branch by branch.
Cry in private and then say stop.
If this doesnt work, try using the traffic light system below:
Stop! Negative thoughts, control emotions, use inner strength

to build confidence.
Accept! Life has changed. Love nature, God, music, sports,

friends and hobbies.
Go! Love yourself. Negative emotions can make you ill.
Ellie:
Ive been thinking ... Ive been thinking about princess Diana.
Ive been thinking about what she might say to you if she was
here. And I think she would say this: Im the sort of person who
isnt afraid to make a s tand and say what they think. Im
articulate about how I feel and if Im upset, I let it show. There
are people out there who dont like that, they would rather I stay
quiet because an inarticulate person is no danger to society. In the
spirit of free speech and as a blow to conformity I would like to
say this. This is for the marginalised, for the silenced. This is for
all the children whove lost parents and parents whove lost
children and children whove lost pets. Its for all the brothers
and sisters whove lost siblings. This is for all the grandchildren
without grandparents. This is for all the widows and widowers.
This is for everyone who has people they love and know that one
day those people wont be there anymore. This is for the grieving
and those soon to be grieving, whichever group you are in.
For you, I will not be quiet, will not behave, will not be pleasant
or strong or keep a dignified silence. For you, I will try and forget
my manners.
Ellie Harrison 59
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Notes
1
T. Etchells, Certain Fragments, Routledge, London, 1999, p. 13.
Bibliography
Etchells, T., Certain Fragments. Routledge, London, 1999.
Ellie Harrisson is a Leeds based artist and performance maker. She creates a range
of solo, collaborative, durational and site-specific performances and artworks that
constantly try to seek out the sincere in the synthetic and unpick media imagery.
Her distinctive brand of solo performance involves contrasting source material
with her own autobiography and the experiences of the audiences she performs to.
Etiquette of Grief is a solo performance touring the UK and Europe in 2011/2012.

It is part of a series of performances and art works which correlate to the seven
stage grief model in popular psychology. The second instalment, The Reservation
is an intimate performance for hotel rooms, touring the north of England in
2011/2012.
Dying on TV: Traumatic Encounter, on Screen and for Real
Misha Kavka
Abstract
In recent years there has been a growing public fascination with the televisual
documentation of what Vivian Sobchack has called unsimulated death. Whether
in the form of television documentary, reality TV, first-person diaries, celebrity
docs or disaster clips, these seemingly scattered instances make up the hazy
outlines of a paradigm shift in the way that Western media culture screens death.
Once relegated to brief but controversial news items, the possibility of dying on
camera has now entered the cultural imaginary in more extended forms, as intimate
footage of ordinary people breathing their last or daily reports of celebrities living
out their dying in the media glare. To compel our attention, the death must be real,
but such reality edges into the unbearable, raising questions about the ethics of
visualizing traumatic encounter for mediated public witnessing. This chapter
addresses the traumatic encounter within the epistemological framework of
mediated dying. Key to the traumatic kernel of any encounter with death is its
unrepresentability on the one hand - when does death occur? how do we know? -
and the proximity to what is unknowable on the other. Technologically and
affectively, however, the television camera brings a mass viewership into the
intimate present/presence of death, both exacerbating the traumatic effect and
shifting the representational, social and ethical codes by which we know dying.
Through a comparison of two different instances of dying on TV - Silverlake Life
(PBS/USA, 1993) and Jade (LivingTV/UK, 2008/09) - the chapter aims to
untangle the ethics of traumatic encounter through attention to media form,
encounter and the affective labour of the camera.
Key Words: Dying, television, reality TV, ethics, affect, Silverlake Life, Jade
Goody.
*****
In recent years there has been a g rowing fascination with the televisual
documentation of what Vivian Sobchack has called unsimulated death. Whether
in the form of terminal-disease documentary, reality TV footage, first-person
diaries, celebrity docs or disaster clips, these seemingly scattered instances make
up the hazy outlines of a paradigm shift in the way that Western media culture
approaches death. Once relegated to serious documentary or brief news items,
death on camera has now crossed over into the light programming genres of post-
documentary culture. Indeed, the possibility of seeing someone actually die on
screen has begun to enter the cultural imaginary, as real people find reason or
occasion to live out their dying in front of cameras and hence in front of the public.
62 Dying on TV
__________________________________________________________________
These deaths compel our attention because they are real, but such reality also edges
into the unbearable, raising questions about the ethics and affect of staging this
traumatic encounter for mediated public witnessing. As the television camera
brings a mass viewership into the intimate present/presence of death, it creates a
shift in the representational, social and ethical codes by which we know dying.
This is more than just a matter of changes in television content, for it marks a
difference in the way we now apprehend trauma. Since Cathy Caruths celebrated
work on trauma in the mid-1990s, trauma theory has largely been concerned with
the unrepresentability of the traumatic event. As Caruth has argued, following
Freud, the traumatic event is the site of a wounding experience and a failure of
memory. 1 Caruths work has been exemplary in showing how texts nonetheless
carry traces of some forgotten wound, bearing witness through material
hieroglyphics and symbolic absences to an unrepresentable event. Dying on TV,
however, moves this discussion to radically different terrain, since such instances
offer to present rather than represent the event. Death occurs as the camera is
running; although the event is mediated, it nonetheless happens in some sense
before our very eyes. As a traumatic event, this requires a conceptual reframing of
trauma theory, from an emphasis on bodily experience to the experience of seeing,
from traumatic wounding to traumatic viewing, from memory of the past to an
occurrence in the present. As a starting point for this reframing, I would suggest
that dying on camera is shocking because it presents us with too much to see, with
a surfeit of representation rather than its lack. This is in line with what I consider to
be a shift in trauma studies from an interest in unrepresentability to over-
representation. Caught at the intersection between histories of violence and
cultures of over-sharing, the traumatic world seems to have little trouble
articulating itself. It is how to deal with its many articulations that is now the
question.
Although the presentation of dying has become more accessible through
televisual mediation, the representation of death remains taboo in the West. In fact,
given the liberalization of acceptable images of the erotic and exotic, we might say
that unsimulated death marks the limit point of where the camera can go and what
it can capture. The cultural history of the death taboo has been elegantly reviewed
by Vivian Sobchack in an unsurpassed article written in 1984 that sets out a
semiotic phenomenology of death in documentary film. 2 Extending Philippe
Ariss argument that the once-public process of dying became privatized,
technologized and medicalised in the twentieth century, Sobchack argues that
natural death [disappeared] from public space and discourse, 3 becoming
unnatural and unnameable in our real social relations. 4 The disappearance of
natural death has left us with a public space that, ironically, is drenched in violent
death, as is richly evidenced by Hollywoods ongoing fascination with war films,
action heroes and increasingly imaginative graphic horror. Such images of violent
death, however, are permissible only because they come wrapped in the protective
Misha Kavka 63
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membrane of fictive representation. 5 When this membrane is ruptured by indices of
actual death, the representation of death threatens to become unbearable.
This metaphor of rupture is precisely the terminology used by Freud to define
the process of trauma. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud encourages his
readers to understand traumatic neuroses as the consequence of an extensive
rupture of the cerebral skin (Rinde) that protects the organism from excessive
stimuli. 6 In Sobchacks terms, such a rupture or violation occurs whenever the
representational system of documentary takes up the unnatural and unnameable
object of death:
when death is represented as fictive rather than real it is

understood that only the simulacrum of a visual taboo is being
violated. However, when death is represented as real, when its
signs are structured and inflected so as to function indexically, a
visual taboo is violated, and the representation must find ways to
justify the violation. 7
The traumatic rupture of the visual taboo requires justification, which in turn is
provided through an ethical framing. For Sobchack, it is in the documentary
mediation of the encounter - between death and the spectator, between the screen
and the social world - that the ethical relation inheres:
Before the event of unsimulated death, the viewers very act of

looking is ethically charged and is, itself, the object of ethical
judgment when it is viewed: the viewer is held ethically
responsible for his or her visible visual response. 8 (orig.
emphasis)
This ethical charge gives serious documentary its gravity, but the
responsibility of viewing ethically is discharged elsewhere, through what - in a
departure from Sobchack - I would call the affective gaze of personal
documentary.
As an example, I would like to consider Silverlake Life: The View from Here
(Friedman, 1993), a film based on autobiographical video footage shot by
filmmaker Tom Joslin to document his own and his partner Mark Massis struggles
with AIDS. The filming was begun in 1989 when Joslin learned, following Massis
own diagnosis, that he had full-blown AIDS. Turning the camera on himself and
his surroundings, Joslin shot the film both as a billet doux to his long-time lover
Mark and as a journal of the labour that goes into dying. When Joslin passed away
in 1990 and Massi another eleven months later, they left 40 hours of film to be
edited and completed by Joslins friend and ex-student Peter Friedman.
64 Dying on TV
__________________________________________________________________
Peggy Phelan, in her book Mourning Sex, has written very sensitively about
Silverlake Life as a f ilm that resolutely and imaginatively re-examines the link
between the temporality of death and the temporality of cinema. 9 For Phelan, the
film exemplifies a cinema for the dead which offers the succour of reversible
time within the framework of the moving image. Scraps of moving image, after all,
can be cut out of linear time and reorganized; events can be shuffled and the dead
can be resurrected. Indeed, Friedmans editing of Silverlake Life exemplifies this
reversibility. The film begins at the end, with an interview Friedman conducted
with Massi five months after Joslin had died. The film ends, moreover, with a
return: a formal return to the interview with Massi and a thematic return, for Massi
now talks about Joslin himself returning, coming back as an energy to soothe the
grieving Mark. The final three minutes of film take us even further back, to video
footage of happier days showing the two younger, healthy bodies of Tom and Mark
dancing to a 60s love song. This inversion of narrative temporality, from back to
front, makes visible times reversibility something which is possible only in
cinema. 10 Cinema is the medium which can turn the physical body into a
phantasmal still-moving body [that] leaves a trace; it can make the traumatic
encounter with death speak through the traces of its reversibility. Dancing out their
days in a post-mortal loop, the bodies of the two lovers continue to move and to
move us. Motion and emotion are brought together in the closing sequence, and the
finality of dying is overridden by the cinematic temporality of the recurring past.
I have, however, left a yawning gap in my rush to knit together the beginning
and end of this film. For what makes this film a compelling and traumatic
document is precisely how close it comes to documenting dying. So close that it
forces us to ask when Toms dying happens - is it now? was it just then? - and to
question how we think we know. In actuality, there is perhaps a week between the
last representation of Tom alive on screen and the first sight of him after he has
died, but the cut between these two images is so quick, and the two shots are so
formally similar, that his death seems initially ungraspable. In his last interview to-
camera, the emaciated Tom makes the effort to speak, but his voice is ghostly,
dependent on a body too weak to frame the words. Struggling to say something
about friends, Toms last word is good. before the shot cuts suddenly to a similar
framing but a different body, the now-dead body. The sudden cut to this same-but-
different body is a s hock, a rupture in the fabric of the film that catches us
unawares. We dont know whether Tom is living, dying or dead; we need time to
process the difference between the stages, a difference which can only be grasped
in an act of retrospection. As Phelan notes, without Massis voice-over
announcement that it is the first July and Tom has just died, we would not know
that the image on the screen is the now-dead body: In this sense, she writes, it is
literally an after-image. 11
The viewers ethical relation to this death is bound to, and by, the grief of the
living. Before Massis voice-over we hear his wail, arising as though it were the
Misha Kavka 65
__________________________________________________________________
after-shock of Toms last word, good. Before we even register the existential shift
from living-dying to now-dead, the body on screen is already encompassed by
grief, framed by affect in the quivering of Massis voice as he sings a farewell love
song and in the trembling of the frame that indexes the shaking of Massis own
grieving body. The affect punctures the documentary space, flooding it into our
own social, ontological world. The affect thus provides the basis of our ethical
relation to the image of dead man on screen. Tom Joslin is seen dying by the
person with whom he was most intimate, the person who knew him best, and this
intimate seeing mediates our seeing. This intimate recognition has an ethical
register, in the Levinasian sense, which in Silverlake Life appropriately
concentrates our gaze on the sight of Toms face, first in its dying-living and then
in its now-dead manifestation. Holding the face in this intimate frame becomes a
form of respect for the dead, delivering Tom from the anonymity of becoming just
another AIDS statistic.
The ethical relation between the viewer and death documented on screen
becomes trickier, however, in post-documentary culture, which is John Corners
umbrella term for the range of factual programming that functions to entertain
rather than inform. 12 How is one to maintain ethical responsibility in the traumatic
mediated encounter with, for instance, a dying reality TV star? This question was
raised in 2009 by the rapid decline and demise, in the glare of the media, of UK
reality TV star Jade Goody. In August 2008 G oody had been diagnosed with
cervical cancer, coincidentally just as her fading media career was receiving a
second life from two separate reality shows, the single-episode Living with Jade
Goody and the series Bigg Boss, the Indian version of Big Brother. With the cancer
diagnosis, which Goody fittingly learned about on air in the Bigg Boss diary room,
LivingTV decided to produce an open-ended reality series, Jade, that would
chronicle Goodys battle with cancer. As it turned out, the programme ended up
chronicling, if not her actual death, then at least the process of her dying, to great
public consternation.
The height of the debate and condemnation that met Goodys very public dying
was triggered by a particular statement she made on 15 F ebruary 2009 i n an
interview with News of the World:
Ive lived in front of the cameras. And maybe Ill die in front of
them. And I know some people dont like what Im doing but at
this point I really dont care what other people think. Now, its
about what I want.
The suggestion that someone may want to die on camera proved almost as
disturbing in this often repeated quote as the intention that she would die on
camera. Although it turned out that Goody receded from the public eye some three
66 Dying on TV
__________________________________________________________________
weeks before her death, this did not prevent many people, including obituarists,
from thinking that she had indeed died on camera.
Even though the people represented in post-documentary television are there
for our diversion, 13 it turns out that they are nonetheless subject to death, like any
living, material body. Whereas the documentation of dying in Silverlake Life can
begin at the end and end with a return, however, the televisual capture of Jade
Goody dying - like its daily media coverage - marched inexorably toward an end
that would be the end. Phelan notes of the experience of watching Silverlake Life
that the spectator must create a narrative chronology of the temporally
scrambled shots. 14 One could say the same of the TV series Jade, particularly
since it appeared between August 2008 a nd March 2009 in irregular episodes
which sped up exponentially as Goodys conditioned worsened and her end neared.
In the experience of watching the reality TV series, however, the viewer was
forced to create a narrative chronology not because of the reversibility of cinematic
time, but rather because of the presentist but non-coincident relation between the
TV screen and actual bodies in the social world. Someone dying on post-
documentary television highlights the fact that the temporalities of screening and
being are excruciatingly close but do not coincide. They are not free of one
another, as with cinematic returns, but are rather sutured together by a real person
whose dying is irrevocably linked to the progression of time. It is this doubly dying
subject, in the world and on TV, that makes watching dying on camera obscenely
proximate, a surfeit of representation that is ultimately ungraspable.
The indexical signs of dying in documentary stitch death into the real space of
our world yet leave us with a representational deficit. As opposed to the obsessive,
even hysterical ardour with which death comes to the screen in symbolic fictions,
documentary is confronted with the unrepresentability of death. At the same time,
viewers of unsimulated death experience an impossible desire to see: we want to
see on-screen death in order to know it, yet no one really wants to feel what is it
like to die. The surfeit of representation in post-documentary trauma culture arises
from our desire to see death, but at the same time threatens to bring us closer than
this impossible desire can support. After all, rather than wanting to experience our
own death, we want to see someone elses, to cross to the other side and come
back, to make the experience of dying reversible. While the cinematic return
responds to this fantasy, reality TV exposes it as bad faith, as a p oor ethical
relation. A truly ethical relation - which we may not yet have developed with the
screen - would admit that while the image may be reversible, the death we see
marches inexorably toward our own.
Notes
1
C. Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History, Johns
Misha Kavka 67
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2
V. Sobchack, Inscribing Ethical Space: Ten Propositions on Death,
Representation and Documentary, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Vol. 9,
No. 4, 1984, p. 283.
3
Ibid., p. 285.
4
Ibid., p. 286.
5
Ibid.
6
S. Freud, Jenseits des Lustprinzips, Beihefte der Internationalen Zeitschrift fr
Psychoanalyse, Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Leipzig, Vienna,
Zurich, 1921, p. 28.
7
Sobchack, p. 291.
8
Ibid., p. 292.
9
P. Phelan, Mourning Sex: Performing Public Memories, Routledge, London and
New York, 1997, p. 155.
10
Ibid., p. 166.
11
Ibid., p. 169.
12
J. Corner, Documentary in a Post-Documentary Culture? A Note on Forms and
Their Functions, European Science Foundation Changing Media Changing
Europe Programme, 2 A pril 2010, http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/changing.
media/John%20Corner%20paper.htm.
13
Ibid.
14
Phelan, p. 163.
Bibliography
Caruth, C., Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Johns
Corner, J., Documentary in a P ost-Documentary Culture? A Note on Forms and

Their Functions. European Science Foundation Changing Media Changing
Europe Programme, 2 A pril 2010, http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/changing.
media/John%20Corner%20paper.htm.
Freud, S., Jenseits des Lustprinzips. Beihefte der Internationalen Zeitschrift fr

Psychoanalyse. Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Leipzig, Vienna,
Zurich, 1921.
Kavka, M. and West A., Jade the Obscure: Celebrity Death and the Mediatised
Maiden. Celebrity Studies. Vol. 1, No. 2, 2010, pp. 216-230.
Phelan, P., Mourning Sex: Performing Public Memories. Routledge, London and
New York, 1997.
68 Dying on TV
__________________________________________________________________
Sobchack, V., Inscribing Ethical Space: Ten Propositions on Death,

Representation and Documentary. Quarterly Review of Film and Video. Vol. 9,
No. 4, 1984, pp. 283-300.
Misha Kavka teaches in the Department of Film, Television and Media Studies at
the University of Auckland. She has published widely on reality television,
including Reality Television, Affect and Intimacy: Reality Matters (Palgrave, 2008)
and a forthcoming book on the genre of reality TV.
Public Hearing of Private Griefs: Investigating the Performance
of History in Jane Taylors Ubu and the Truth Commission and
John Kanis Nothing but the Truth
Tamar Meskin and Tanya van der Walt

Abstract
This chapter interrogates how Jane Taylor and John Kani use factual material
generated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa in their
plays Ubu and the Truth Commission, 1998, and Nothing but the Truth, 2002.
Both locate their narratives against the backdrop of the TRC and use its testimonies
to confront post-apartheid South African identity tropes. The TRC itself was a
performative event - a performance of pain - that created a space for the
performance of history and the negotiation of both individual and collective
memory in the passage to reconciliation. Although structured differently, the
telling of history and the exploration of memory are foregrounded in both plays.
Kani adopts a realist form, where the national imperative is mediated through the
personal history of the family unit. Ubu offers an expressionistic approach, mixing
media and modes of representation, and drawing extensively on intertextual
influences. Post-apartheid South African theatre practice is often concerned with
how to represent the narratives of its apartheid past. The chapter explores how
these plays address the core question of speaking the past, in order to mediate the
tension between the desire for retribution on the one hand and the need for
reconciliation on the other.
Key Words: South African theatre, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Ubu
and the Truth Commission, William Kentridge, Jane Taylor, Handspring Puppet
Company, Nothing but the Truth, John Kani, testimony, history.
*****
The end of apartheid in 1994 signalled a profound paradigm shift in South

Africa accomplished with relatively little violence. The apparently peaceful
transition, however, concealed deep-seated divisions that have continued to emerge
and confound the development of South Africas democracy. The Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up in 1996 as part of a national
imperative to address these divisions and the legacy of the past. Shane Graham
observes that the banner hanging at every hearing proclaimed, Truth is the Road
to Reconciliation. 1 The idea behind the commission was that full disclosure - truth
- would lead to amnesty, thus facilitating a public cleansing to enable the
construction of a new future. Significantly, however, as McMurtry notes:
70 Public Hearing of Private Griefs
__________________________________________________________________
Of the nineteen Truth Commissions held internationally, South
Africas was the first to have public hearings (Taylor, 1998: vii);
the nation witnessed the heightened atmosphere of telling in all
forms of media coverage. 2
It is this notion of witnessing that is especially important for theatre.

The question of amnesty is also critical. The conflict between the desire for
justice - vengeance - and the need for reconciliation created an inherent tension to
the proceedings, a t ension that offers a r ich source for theatrical invention and
representation. The same tension operates in any situation of trauma where victims
are seeking recovery and restoration.
Central to the purpose of the TRC - and vital for its theatrical connection - is
the recovering of history. The TRC report notes that By telling their stories, both
victims and perpetrators gave meaning to the multi-layered experiences of the
South African story 3 Such recovered history has become the source material
for many post apartheid theatrical works, unsurprising perhaps, given the centrality
of narrative in the theatrical process. Within the narratives of trauma, there is
always scope for dramatic re-enactment(s) that can then serve as way stations on
the path to healing, through the (re)processing of such narratives in structured
forms.
What we are particularly interested in is the way in which the narratives of the
TRC have formed the subject material for post apartheid theatrical events that
grapple with the shape and space of a new South African identity. Greg Homann
suggests that there is an increasing fascination with addressing the nuances and
complexities of representing truth. These works were a d irect response to the
discourse advanced by the TRC. 4 The notion of the complexity of the truth - and
its relationship to history specifically - is what interests us in the two plays
discussed here.
1. History and Identity

History is supposedly objective, but we would argue that history is the weaving
together of multiple voices into a metanarrative that is then accepted as truth.
In re-examining history, we are asked to re-examine notions of truth. We may then
ask the question: why is history important in theatre? It is because we speak the
past to confront and process it. Significantly for theatre, though, memory, which
we may call individualized history, and which is central to the construction of
identity both private and public, is made visible. Thus, the act of making theatre
that confronts and processes history is connected to the establishment of new
identity tropes that negotiate a response to, and processing of, trauma in such a way
as to facilitate recovery. In the case of South Africa, the goal of the TRC was partly
a national catharsis that would enable the past to be consigned to the past, thus
facilitating a new beginning as a whole and undivided nation. That the realpolitik
Tamar Meskin and Tanya van der Walt 71
__________________________________________________________________
result was less exemplary than the somewhat utopian intentions does not detract
from the core import of its central dogma. As Antjie Krog, poet, journalist and
observer of the TRC, points out in her seminal account Country of my Skull, ... if
you cut yourself off from the process [of the TRC], you will wake up in a foreign
country -a country that you dont know and that you will never understand. 5
Theatre practitioners recognized the power of the history emerging from the TRC
as narratives for the beginnings of a new South African theatre project, one that
Zakes Mda calls the theatre of reconciliation 6 for a future that is yet to be made.
2. The TRC & Theatre

The project of this reconciliatory theatre was aided in no small part by the
overtly theatrical and performative nature of the TRC itself. William Kentridge
called the TRC
an exemplary civic theatre, a public hearing of private griefs

which are absorbed into the body politic as a part of a deeper
understanding of how the society arrived at its present position.
It awakes every day the conflict between the desire for
retribution and a need for some sort of social reconciliation. 7
It was not a big leap from the TRC hearings to the notion of using the real-life
testimonies as source material - locating the fictional narrative(s) necessary for the
event of theatre in the non-fiction histories emerging every day in church halls and
schoolrooms all over the country in ever more graphic and agonizing detail. As
Jane Taylor comments, the way in which individual narratives come to stand for
the larger national narrative is what has interested her in the work of the
commission, noting that History and autobiography merge. 8
The public experience of the TRC was by no means unfiltered; indeed, the
challenge of negotiating our understanding of this history was made more difficult
by the fact that only the most dramatic of stories made their way into the public
eye, in sound-bite-sized snatches, sandwiched between a sitcom and a soap opera.
And the hearings themselves, while no doubt dramatic, also could be tedious - how
many times can a version of the same basic narrative of horror be told before one
becomes inured to its hearing? These are some of the questions generated in any
exposure of trauma, be it personal or political. Addressing these debates is at the
crux of negotiating such events theatrically.
In the two plays we are interrogating, the contradictory pull between the desire
for retribution and the need for reconciliation is rendered in action: largely
metaphorically and ironically in Ubu and the Truth Commission (where we are
forced to question the machinations of Ubu as he seeks amnesty for crimes for
which we know he should not be forgiven) and more literally in Nothing But The
Truth in the debates between Thando and Mandisa as to the rightness of granting
__________________________________________________________________
amnesty at all. The aptness of drama for negotiating such contradiction lies in its
ability to embrace ambiguity, tension and conflict, rather than sublimating these to
the cause of nation building (as is often the project of political and media agendas).
3. Ubu and the Truth Commission

The Ubu project was the result of a co llaboration between Jane Taylor (the
author), William Kentridge (the director) and the Handspring Puppet Company.
Significant about the production is firstly, the focus on the perpetrator narrative,
and secondly, the use of puppets, especially those that perform the testimonies.
Kentridge describes the tension in South Africa as being between the
photocopiers and the paper shredders 9 articulating the tension between history and
memory and the creation of a new, and blank, future. Kentridge asks the question:
what has a wide enough mouth to swallow whatever we want to hide? 10 Answer:
a crocodile (a nod to the groot Krokodil - big crocodile in Afrikaans - the satirical
nickname given to PW Botha, former finger-waving and much-vilified president of
South Africa) and thus is born the central image of the crocodile handbag puppet
who consumes Ubus history but retains it in its secret belly so that it can emerge
to damn him when necessary.
Then there is the intertextual connection with Alfred Jarrys text, Ubu Roi
(1896), which famously created a huge and public furore with its scatological
language, its irreverence, and its overt and satirical critique of bourgeois society.
In Taylor/Kentridges version, Ubu is confronted with his crimes and forced to
accept their consequences.
The style of the work is profoundly theatrical. The interplay between the live
actors (Ma and Pa Ubu), the various puppets, and the two-dimensional animations
forming the backdrop for the action, produces a multilayered theatrical experience.
The collage effect offers the potential to engage juxtaposition and contrast, lending
itself to the experience of the very ambiguity sitting at the heart of the TRC event.
The puppets are used for very distinctive purposes. Three main types emerge:
1. the vulture puppet - a mechanical bird who delivers

incomprehensible squawks throughout as commentary on the
action that are translated on the screen as subtitles - playing a
Greek chorus-like role, pointing the audience to the
significance of what is occurring on the stage. The vulture as
both scavenger and, consequently, cleanser of the wild is
significant. Again ambiguity is suggested: we may despise
and fear the vulture as a carrion eater and symbol of death,
but without its efforts, the cycle of life could not continue.
__________________________________________________________________
2. The animal puppets:
a. Brutus the three headed dog, Ubus companion: t he

intertextual connotations here are myriad - Brutus, best-friend
and murderer of Julius Caesar; the three-headed dog Cerberus
who guards the gates of Hades; the dog itself - mans best
friend. Additionally, as Kentridge points out, the three
heads serve as the three aspects of Ubus henchmen - the foot
soldier, the politician, and the general - the three arms of the
government that facilitated the continuation and
implementation of the apartheid regime.
b. Niles the crocodile - the starting image. N iles is Ma U bus
handbag, a capacious cavity filled with more knowledge than
perhaps anyone really wants. I t is the tension between the
teeth (which destroy) and the belly (which preserves) that
provides the most powerful signifier in terms of this puppet.
3. The witness puppets: by choosing to speak the testimonies

through puppets, Kentridge and Taylor were able to work in
Brechtian epic style, allowing the audience to receive the
testimony without necessarily being emotionally assaulted by
it. The inherent distancing effect of the puppet as performer
offered a unique methodology to engage the historical
narratives of the TRC. The presence of the puppeteers - two
of them for each witness (echoing the presence of two people
alongside each witness at the hearings - one to translate, one
to comfort) - made for a unique double vision of each
testimony. That the puppets are artistic masterpieces in their
own right is also crucial. Each one appears to exude a living
history, the pain and anguish carved into the very structure of
the wood. At the same time, we are never allowed to forget
that their story is only one half of the narrative; an idea
reinforced by the use of Ma Ubu as the translator of the
witnesses stories, speaking from within Ubus shower with
its connotative references to washing away guilt and the
resonances of those activists who slipped in the shower to
their deaths (a particular reference to the death of anti-
apartheid icon Steve Biko).
It is the very theatricality of the work that, we believe, lends it its power. By
engaging the tensions, ambiguities and conflicts of the drama, together with the
innate and symbolist theatricality of the puppets and the animations, the work
__________________________________________________________________
facilitates a new and invigorated understanding of the history that is at the core of
the narrative.
4. Nothing but the Truth

John Kanis play adopts a far more conventionally western, realist tradition to
frame his narrative. However, where Ubu examines the political metanarrative in
an expressionistic and theatricalised manner, Kani elects to use the private
narrative to resonate the public one. Here we are given the story of one family - the
personal is offered as a way in to the political, offering, in miniature, the tale of the
new South Africa.
The TRC here provides the background for, rather than being the focal point of
the story itself. It is against the backdrop of the history emerging at the hearings
that we learn the singular history of Sipho Makhaya. That the play is largely
autobiographical is also significant. It did not begin life as a play; the root of the
narrative is the story of Kanis younger brother Xolile, a political poet shot at age
25 while reading poetry at the funeral of a 9 year old girl in 1985. This play
becomes what Carolyn Clay calls Kanis own truth-and-reconciliation
commission. 11 It is achieved through the speaking of hitherto unspoken history -
the history of all those whose stories have not been immortalized or dramatized in
the TRC roadshow.
The plays anti-hero, Sipho Makhaya, is one of those who stayed, crying out, I
paid for this freedom ... They must never forget the little people like me. 12 In this,
as in many ways, Sipho is a contemporary South African Willy Loman, the small
man, who, as Arthur Miller insisted, is as apt a subject for tragedy as any of the
grand heroes of history.
Siphos daughter, Thando, works for the TRC and must confront her expat
cousin Mandisa, returning from exile to bury her father, and her boiling,
righteous anger at the TRCs intentions to grant amnesty. As Thando points out:
We, who stayed here. We who witnessed first-hand the police

brutality. We who every Saturday buried hundreds of our young
brothers and sisters shot by the police, dying in detention, dying
because of orchestrated black-on-black violence, accept the TRC
process ... If all those who suffered can forgive, then so can
you. 13
This goes to the heart of the debate between reconciliation and retribution.
At its core, this is a play about memory - about how identity is shaped by
memory, how memory is created through history, and how our individualized
memories of trauma and pain from the past create long-term wounds and scars that
require treatment and healing in the present. Siphos narrative is important for its
own sake, but it is also important because it reminds us of the human face of a
__________________________________________________________________
most public history, in this case the legacy of apartheid. It also reminds us that the
journey to reconciliation cannot be legislated - memories do not disappear because
a government tells us to forget them.
5. Conclusion
The complex interweaving of truth, history, memory, and identity is the frame
within which the TRCs litanies create new narratives for South African theatre
and literature in general. Through the access to unspoken histories we are afforded
the opportunity to free ourselves from the shackles of this history - not to forget it,
but to process it and direct our energies to making new histories out of the old.
However, what is critical in aiming for national unification and reconciliation is
that we do not forget the individual narratives. The temptation to subscribe to a
new hegemonic imperative that denies space for conflicting or oppositional points
of view or attitudes is strong, especially given the powerful motivation of building
a new country. We must resist that temptation by embracing the very
contradictions and contestations that are inherent in our new countrys birth. Only
by so doing can we make that new county in a new image that owns and recognizes
its past, but is not trapped and enshrined in it.
As Antjie Krog so poignantly writes, on the personal release contingent upon
the creation of awareness:
For the first time in months - I breathe. The absolution one has
given up on, the hope for a catharsis, the ideal of reconciliation,
the dream of a powerful reparations policy Maybe this is all
that is important - that I and my child know [the names]
Vlakplaas and [Joe] Mamasela. That we know what happened
there. 14
Or, even more powerfully: We tell stories not to die of life. 15
Notes
1
S. Graham, The Truth Commission and Post-Apartheid Literature, Research in
African Literatures, Vol. 34(1), 2003, p. 11.
2
M. McMurtry, For Richer, for Poorer: Reflections on Contemporary Theatrical
Design in South Africa, Unpublished paper, 2000, p. 22.
3
Cited in M. Sanders, Truth, Telling, Questioning: The Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, Antjie Krogs Country of My Skull, and Literature after Apartheid,
Transformation, Vol. 42, p. 76.
4
G. Homann, At this Stage: Plays from Post-Apartheid South Africa,
Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, 2009, p. 9.
5
A. Krog, Country of My Skull, Random House, Johannesburg, 1998, p. 131.
__________________________________________________________________
6
J. Kani, Nothing but the Truth, Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg,
2002, p. viii.
7
J. Taylor, Ubu and the Truth Commission, University of Cape Town Press, Cape
Town, 1998, p. ix.
8
Jane Taylors Play recounts Truth Commission Narratives, Emory Report, Vol.
51(11), 1998, Viewed on 21 A ugust 2008, http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_
REPORT/erarchive/1998/November/ernovember.0/.
9
Taylor, p. viii.
10
Ibid.
11
C. Clay, Truth and Reconciliation: John Kani Tells a South African Story, The
Boston Phoenix, 2005, Viewed on 21 August 2008, http://www.bostonphoenix.
com/boston/arts/theater/documents/04425353.asp.
12
Kani, p. 58.
13
Ibid., pp. 29-30.
14
Krog, p. 131.
15
Ibid., p. 48.
Bibliography
Clay, C., Truth and Reconciliation: John Kani Tells a South African Story. The
Boston Phoenix. 2005, Viewed on 21 August 2008, http://www.bostonphoenix.
com/boston/arts/theater/documents/04425353.asp.
Graham, S., The Truth Commission and Post-Apartheid Literature. Research in

African Literatures. Vol. 34(1), 2003, pp. 11-30.
Homann, G. (ed), At This Stage: Plays from Post-Apartheid South Africa.

Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, 2009.
Jane Taylors Play Recounts Truth Commission Narratives. Emory Report. Vol.
51(11), 1998, Viewed on 21 A ugust 2008, http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_
REPORT/erarchive/1998/November/ernovember.0/.
Kani, J., Nothing but the Truth. W itwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg,
2003
Krog, A., Country of My Skull. Random House, Johannesburg, 1998.
McMurtry, M., For Richer, for Poorer: Reflections on Contemporary Theatrical

Design in South Africa. Unpublished paper, 2000.
__________________________________________________________________
Sanders, M., Truth, Telling, Questioning: The Truth and Reconciliation

Commission, Antjie Krogs Country of My Skull and Literature after Apartheid.
Transformation. Vol. 42, 2000, pp. 73-91.
Taylor, J., Ubu and the Truth Commission. University of Cape Town Press, Cape
Town, 1998.
Tamar Meskin has been a lecturer in the Drama and Performance Studies
programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal since 1995. H er undergraduate
studies were conducted at the University of Natal (Durban) where she graduated
cum laude. Awarded the Emma Smith Overseas Scholarship, she then went on to
complete her MFA in Acting at the University of California, Los Angeles. Since
returning to South Africa, she has directed over 30 pr oductions, many of which
have been nominated for awards. S he has co-written productions and also
performs when she can. Her primary research areas are directing, acting, directing,
writing and multi/intercultural performance practices. She is currently pursuing
doctoral research around performance making and pedagogy.
Tanya van der Walt lectures in Drama Studies at Durban University of

Technology, specializing in the training of performers and directors in theatre. Her
undergraduate studies were conducted at the University of Natal (Durban) and she
holds an MA in Drama from Rhodes University. Her career in theatre has included
such diverse activities as stage management, lighting design, arts administration,
marketing/publicity, acting, directing, writing and teaching. She also has extensive
experience in formulating and facilitating Theatre-in-Education projects. H er
primary research interests are in the areas of directing, acting, drama- and theatre-
in-education, and she is currently pursuing doctoral research using self-study
methodologies to investigate collaborative enquiry through performance pedagogy.
PART 2
Literary Traumas
He looks at me as if I were a dog: Representations of Shame
and Trauma in the Fiction of Jean Rhys
Jack Dawson
Abstract
Trauma and shame profoundly haunt the fiction of Jean Rhys, 1 yet little
scholarship exists which addresses the significance of the role of shame, and its
links to trauma, within her work. This chapter will concern itself with Jean Rhyss
fourth novel, Good Morning, Midnight, published in 1939, and will focus
particularly on one technique Rhys uses to represent shame, that of ocular imagery.
Visual dynamics and taboos on looking are often extended to implicate the reader
in the intersubjective relation of shaming, and are intricately and intimately woven
into the texture of trauma. Rhyss work demands participatory reading and, as
readers, we are often implicated in the shaming reification of protagonists, as our
only entrance into their world is often by watching, which may evoke
uncomfortable voyeuristic feelings in the reader; we conspire in the reification of
her protagonists as we watch the narrator watching the protagonist watching others
watching them, which can potentially flood the reader with affect. Mary Ayers
notes that shame is a co ntagious affect, stinging the observer with the sheer
visceral power of exposure. While M. Jacoby argues that the historically rare
discussion on this subject could be because shame shows its most shameful side
precisely when it is laid bare, so that whoever takes on the task of exposing it
becomes vulnerable to its sting. And there is an implied hurt attached to the word
sting. This chapter will seek to address the following issues within the text: the
multi-layered, narrative approaches to trauma and their significant relationship
with affect, specifically shame; shame linked to visual dynamics and ocular
imagery - to feelings of exposure and invasion, from self to other, from text to
reader; literature and an exploration of emotion/affect and expression.
Key Words: Shame, trauma, visual dynamics, ocular imagery, eyes, Jean Rhys,
affect.
*****
To the person who suffers shame, the world is full of eyes,

crowded with things and people that can see. Bewitching eyes
watch every movement and moment of self. 2
The core of agony in shame is this element of exposure. 3
I was the dirtiest bitch he had ever struck. 4

82 He looks at me as if I were a dog
__________________________________________________________________
Shame saturates Rhyss fiction. And it is in the refusal of control, dignity,
power and self-possession to her female subject that Rhyss novels are so radical.
Rhys eschews the conventional forms of narrative authority, which are linked to
the kinds of patriarchal authority that the oft written about they in her novels
embody. Jean Rhys writes from the edge, from the other side of confidence, from
the other side of respectability. The Rhys protagonist dramatises shame -
vulnerability described by Wurmser as a sensitivity to, and readiness for, shame
and shame anxiety, which is evoked by the imminent danger of unexpected
exposure, humiliation, and rejection. 5
Sasha Jansen, the narrator-protagonist of Jean Rhyss fourth novel lives a world
of utter darkness. 6 We meet her at a time in her life when she is [q]uite alone, a
place of alienation where she feels there is [n]o voice, no touch, no hand
available to her; 7 she has reached an impasse. 8 Shame is the affect of indignity,
of defeat, of transgression, and of alienation. And with Sasha, Rhys appears to be
showing us all the traits that are deemed shameful in women; Sasha is a woman
who drinks too much: [i]t was then that I had the bright idea of drinking myself to
death; 9 a woman who becomes a v irtual prostitute: [t]here was a monsieur, but
the monsieur has gone. There was more than one monsieur, but they have all gone.
What an assortment! One of every kind. 10 And, for Sasha, perhaps the worst sin of
all, a woman ageing: she feels sad ... sad as a woman who is growing old. Sad,
sad, sad. 11
Sashas life is revealed slowly to us: [i]t wasnt one thing. It took years. It was
a slow process to reach her impasse. 12 Her intimate journey is exposed to us by
the fixed, focalised, first person narrative, that holds a confessional quality, which
may create feelings of tension in the reader. We journey alongside her, where her
innermost feelings become an exhibition as we witness her alienation from self:
[w]hat are you? I am an instrument, something to be made use of. 13 To witness
shame is also perhaps to feel it for ourselves and shame is an acutely painful
feeling a feeling of a small, inner death; thereby Rhys destabilises the reader by
exposing Sasha and the reader to shaming scenes.
This destabilising effect is enhanced further by Rhyss choice of using alcohol
one of Sashas vices. Its effects are intimately woven with the dynamics of
trauma and shame and serve to heighten the dramatic effects on both the narrative
structure and Sashas disintegrating relationship with self. The temporal shifts in
narrative mimic a drunken swagger as we are taken [b]ack, back, back, 14 and like
Sasha, we as readers may feel disoriented for a moment and do not know whether
its yesterday, today or tomorrow. 15 At some level, Sasha is aware of her own
fragmentation:
Its when I am quite sane like this, when I have had a couple of
extra drinks and am quite sane Im a bit of an automaton, but
sane surely dry, cold and sane. Now I have forgotten about the
Jack Dawson 83
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dark streets, dark rivers, the pain, the struggle and the
drowning. 16
There is a brutal, relentless truth in how she articulates the pain and suffering of
being in this degraded state; it is a state of survival, rather than a state of living:
[f]rom your heaven you have to go back to hell. When you are dead to the world,
the world often rescues you, if only to make a figure of fun out of you; 17 [s]he is
past shame, detached, grim. 18
Alcohol is the watery cloak that serves to hide her feelings of shame, yet
paradoxically it exposes her to shaming scenes. The waiter looks at her in a sly,
amused way, and the waitress says nothing [b]ut she says it a ll. 19 Sasha
continually lives in a s tate of anxiety, where she will blush at a l ook, cry at a
word; 20 where she feels, [w]ith a hundred francs they buy the unlimited right to
scorn you. Its cheap. 21 The polarities of being hidden and exposed are explored
as Sasha misuses barbiturates, which enable her to sleep and hide in hotel rooms
rooms which should be womb-like, but are tomb-like I crept in and hid. The lid
of the coffin shut down with a bang, and alcohol to help her forget in her waking
moments. 22
How Sasha looks, how she appears to both herself and others is also related to
her feelings of shame. Her scopophobic tendencies, [r]un, run away from their
eyes, 23 and [d]ont let him notice me, dont let him look at me. Isnt there
something you can do so that nobody looks at you or sees you? are symptomatic
of the humiliation and shame she feels. 24 And also in direct relation to the traumas
she has suffered the death of her child, the death of her marriage, and her
alienation from family. Sasha Jansen lurches through the narrative in a highly
sensitised state He looks at me with distaste. Plat du Jour - boiled eyes, served
cold. 25
As Sashas story unfolds she remembers her first time living in Paris with her
now estranged husband Enno; he had abandoned her after the death of their child
and it was after that she tells us she began to go to pieces. 26 Ennos rejection of
her, tied to the death of her child, creates feelings of immense shame in Sasha.
Enno told her: You dont know how to make love youre too passive, youre
lazy, you bore me goodbye. 27 Sasha feels the shame of not being a good
mother, a good lover, or a good wife. Yet at the beginning of her relationship with
Enno, Sasha was not happy. It was then that she decided to change her name from
Sophia to Sasha, because she thinks it might change [her] luck a failed attempt
to escape herself, her true identity. 28
Feelings of shame are further linked to identity and the construction of self;
Sasha tells us: I have no pride no pride, no name, no face, no country. I dont
belong anywhere. 29 She travels from hotel room to rented room, from London to
Paris, and any fixed domestic space takes on the persona of monsters [with] two
__________________________________________________________________
lighted eyes at the top to sneer at her. 30 She has become alienated from any form
of stability, both internally and in a physical space too.
Sasha, in her waking moments, gets into the habit of walking with [her] head
down, 31 but she also walks along with [her] head bent, very ashamed in her
dream/nightmare moments too. 32 There is no escape from her feelings of shame
there is a deep incompleteness in her at the bottom of all the other shames, which is
never sourced. Even as a child Sashas feelings of (innate?) shame are alluded to:
Ive never been young. When I was young I was strained up, anxious. 33 So here
an acknowledgement that she has never felt comfortable in her skin, and attempts
to externally fix herself with clothes, alcohol and men is therefore doomed to
failure: [i]t is a black dress with wide sleeves embroidered in vivid colours if I
had been wearing it I should never have stammered or been stupid; 34 a hat, a new
hair colour, I had expected to think about this damned hair of mine without any
let-up for days and immediately after it has been newly dyed, I must go and
buy a hat this afternoon I must get on with the transformation act. 35 All are
futile attempts to give her the concrete proof she needs in order to know that she
exists, except she desperately tries to change how she looks, because she has
become empty of everything. 36 Sasha acknowledges the futility of her position:
Please, please, monsieur et madame, mister, misses and miss, I

am trying so hard to be like you. I know I don't succeed, but look
how hard I try [e]very word I say has chains round its
ankles. 37
Her feelings of shame, her need to be kept hidden behind a succession of men,
new clothes and alcohol have manifested in feelings of futility, despair and chronic
shame. When she borrows money from an old lover, he steals a kiss from her. She
returns feeling: I feel so awful. I feel so dirty. I want to have a bath. I want another
dress. I want clean underclothes. I feel so awful. I feel so dirty. 38 No one thing,
however, will change how she feels; the repetition of the words I feel, dirty, and
awful evoke images of ingrained shame shame that cannot be scrubbed away in
a bath, or hidden underneath new dresses, or clean underclothes. Wurmser argues
that at the core of shame, is the conviction of ones unlovability because of an
inherent sense that the self is weak, dirty and defective. 39 Ayers notes:
In shame, we meet eyes and avoid eyes; the solitary, scrutinising

eye of our inner selves or the collective eyes of the world that
will bear witness to our state of self-worthlessness, impotence,
undesirability, ugliness, incompetence, filth, or damage. 40
Jack Dawson 85
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Whilst in Paris Sasha meets Rene the gigolo, a man who makes her feel natural
and happy, just as if [she] were young but really young. 41 She has the chance to
feel passion, to come alive again. But she rejects him and in so doing, ultimately
rejects herself too. She leaves Rene outside the hotel and does not invite him into
her room, her self. She imagines Renes return to her room with the words:
I have my arms around him Now everything is in my arms on

this dark landing love, youth, spring, happiness, everything I
thought I had lost But a whisper What do I expect to see?
There is nobody on the landing nothing. 42
There is nobody there, but Rene embodies every thing she has lost: love,
youth, spring, happiness. 43 As Sasha has imagined his return, her alienation is
complete; the pain of ultimately rejecting the only source of human love open to
her however fleetingly, because of her feelings of inadequacy and shame, become
too much: [t]his is the effort under which the human brain cracks. 44 She
brutalises his imagined lovemaking, in what is now her shamed, broken, corrupted
mind: I feel his hard knee between my knees. My mouth hurts, my breasts hurt,
because it hurts, when you have been dead, to come alive. 45 Sasha returns to the
foetal position for her birth into a shaming death and her dislocation from self
becomes complete:
I turn over on my side and huddle up, making myself as small as

possible, my knees almost touching my chin. I cry in the way it
hurts right down, that hurts your heart and your stomach. Who is
this crying? The same one who laughed on the landing this is
me, this is myself who is crying. The other how do I know who
the other is. She is not me. 46
Throughout the narrative the figure of a man in a white dressing-gown appears;

he occupies the room next door to Sasha in the Parisian hotel. It is through him that
we may question our position as voyeurs to Sashas journey. When Sasha tells us
that [t]he truth is improbable, the truth is fantastic; its in what you think is a
distorting mirror that you see the truth, 47 we see that by exposing Sashas
corrupted, traumatised, chemically-induced truth, Rhys also implicitly exposes the
truth of a judging, harsh and shallow society there is always a they in Rhyss
fiction; a disembodied they who are the judging others, the producers of shame.
If we are not vigilant as readers, we too may take on the persona/role of white
dressing-gown man and become judging others. His very function appears to be
that disowned part in Sasha, the disowned projections we may have? Therefore, he
does not exist outside of Sashas/our mind; a fictional hovering projection. He is
always [h]anging around like the ghost of the landing [and] is as thin as a
__________________________________________________________________
skeleton with a peculiar expression, cringing, ingratiating, knowing. 48
Furthermore, as Sasha touches him, [i]ts like pushing a paper man, a ghost,
something that doesnt exist. 49 He is always encountered on the landing; a landing
is a transitional space, a space that takes you from one place to another.
White dressing-gown man gains access to Sashas embrace only after her
rejection of Rene; inner doors that have remained closed are now opened up to this
judging other and the dreams that you have, alone in an empty room, waiting for
the door that will open and Sasha lets him into her most private place, her
bedroom, her self. 50 He is like a grotesque leering god-monster; like a priest, the
priest of some obscene, half-understood religion. 51 He is dressed in white
(innocence, nothingness or judgement?) and finally envelops Sasha in a
metaphorical death; a s piritual death of chronic, searing shame linked explicitly
with sex. If he is Sashas judging other, a disowned projected part of self, is this
final orgasmic [y]es yes yes embrace of him a healing death; a spiritual death
of shame that will result into one of rebirth? 52
Shame, unless realised, is corrosive and destroys, but once realised it forms a
basis for rebirth; as Fernie notes, [f]reedom from self is liberation into love the
idea of shame as transcendence may apply to Sashas journey also, a release from
the impasse at which her journey opened. Shame is, however, a spiritual fulcrum,
poised between transcendence and oblivion, salvation and damnation. 53 If, as
suggested, Rhys does link shame to the fall, to feelings of innate shame, does she
then offer Sasha a release from original sin, to a place where Sasha can overcome
her innate feelings of shame? Is Sashas acceptance her salvation, or her
damnation?
By exploring the lives of Jean Rhyss petite femmes, there can be found a
yearning, a d eep incompleteness at the bottom of all their other shames. This
incompleteness this search for a viable self is not entirely socially determined.
Their alienation is only partly the result of living in a patriarchal world. Rhyss
petite femmes are transformed, momentarily, by a new frock, a new man, a couple
of glasses of wine. They cannot however escape themselves completely. Rhys is
writing about a l ost truth, a l ost innocence; Rhyss yearning is for a p relapsarian
world. Rhys is writing about the lost perfection their lives have always fallen away
from, and the return they long for and can only dream of. Sasha articulates a truth
felt by all Jean Rhyss petite femmes: Since I was born, hasnt every word Ive
said, every thought Ive thought, everything Ive done, been tied up, weighted,
chained? (my emphasis). 54
Jack Dawson 87
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Notes
1
J. Rhys, Good Morning, Midnight, Penguin, London, 2000, p. 26.
2
M. Ayers, Mother-Infant Attachment and Psychoanalysis: The Eyes of Shame,
Routledge, London and New York, 2008, p. 1.
3
Ibid., p. 1.
4
Rhys, op. cit., p. 119.
5
L. Wurmser, The Mask of Shame, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore,
1997, p. 49.
6
Rhys, op.cit., p. 145.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid., p. 9.
9
Ibid., p. 37.
10
Ibid., p. 68.
11
Ibid., p. 39.
12
Ibid., p. 146.
13
Ibid., p. 50.
14
Ibid.., p. 50.
15
Ibid., p. 121.
16
Ibid., p. 10.
17
Ibid., p. 76.
18
Ibid., p. 19.
19
Ibid., p. 87.
20
Ibid., p. 26.
21
Ibid., p. 101.
22
Ibid., p. 37.
23
Ibid., p. 24.
24
Ibid., p. 17.
25
Ibid., p. 25.
26
Ibid., p. 119.
27
Ibid., p. 107.
28
Ibid., p. 11.
29
Ibid., p. 38.
30
Ibid., p. 28.
31
Ibid., p. 72.
32
Ibid., p. 12.
33
Ibid., p. 130.
34
Ibid., p. 25.
35
Ibid., p. 53.
36
Ibid., p. 48.
37
Ibid., p. 88.
38
Ibid., p. 101.
__________________________________________________________________
39
Wurmser, op. cit., p. 93.
40
Ayers, op. cit., p. 2.
41
Ibid., p. 130.
42
Ibid., p. 148.
43
Ibid.
44
Ibid., p. 157.
45
Ibid., p. 153.
46
Ibid., p. 154.
47
Ibid., p. 63.
48
Ibid., p. 13.
49
Ibid., p. 31.
50
Ibid., p. 83.
51
Ibid., p. 30.
52
Ibid., p. 159.
53
E. Fernie, Shame in Shakespeare, Routledge, London, 2002, p. 233.
54
Rhys, op. cit., p. 88.
Bibliography
Adamson, J. and Clark, H. (eds), Scenes Of Shame: Psychoanalysis, Shame, and

Writing. State University of New York, New York, 1999.
Ayers, M., Mother-Infant Attachment and Psychoanalysis: The Eyes of Shame.

Routledge, London and New York, 2008.
Fernie, E., Shame in Shakespeare. Routledge, London, 2002.
Jacoby, M., Shame: Its Archetypal Meaning and Its Neurotic Distortions. Paper
presented at the C. G. Jung Center, New York, April 1990.
Moran, P., Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys and the Aesthetics Of Trauma. Palgrave,
New York, 2007.
Rhys, J., Good Morning, Midnight. Penguin, London, 2000.
Wurmser L., The Mask of Shame. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1997.
Jack Dawson is a C ounsellor, Group Therapist and Lecturer. She specialises in

working with adults and young people in crisis. She is undertaking PhD Doctoral
Jack Dawson 89
__________________________________________________________________
studies at Bath Spa University, UK, researching the representation of Trauma and
Shame in the works of Jean Rhys.
Enlisting Rage and Speaking Place: Alexis Wrights Carpentaria
Bridget Haylock
Abstract
Alexis Wrights Carpentaria (2006) explores embodied and indigenous
subjectivity, presenting Australian society reeling from the genocidal trauma and
subsequent rage at its foundations: consequences of colonialism. Carpentaria
shows the progressive amplification of indigenous traumatic experience from the
personal to intra-familial to societal, and illustrates many areas of indigenous
peoples lives that trauma affects. Wright uses the attempted genocide and ensuing
ongoing displacement of the peoples of her nation as a s ynecdoche for the
experience of colonised people worldwide. Wrights work is a ch ronicling of the
fury of the occupied, emphasising the indigenous view that the land and people are
one. The novel centres on the development of land, the result of continued
colonisation, and how rage can be a mobilising force for action. In this chapter I
will explore how, through the implicit use of the Bakhtian carnivalesque, Wright
subverts social assumptions. I will also examine what radical ideas she presents for
cultural and political debate in the light of Deborah Bird Roses thesis of an ethics
for decolonisation. Wright projects and presents a world where the abject,
traumatised, indigenous subject parodies would-be oppressors; in mirroring white
society, she echoes Mary Douglas thesis that absolute dirt exists in the eye of the
beholder. Through the deft use of Mudrooroos maban reality, the indigenous
genre of Australian writing that privileges oral storytelling, Wright performs
emergence from trauma for readers by finding the words, breaking the silence and
speaking place. While Germaine Greer contends that colonialism was successful in
destroying Aboriginal culture, leaving a self-destructive rage in its wake, this is an
invaders point of view; Wrights Aboriginal man enacts agency and enlists rage to
regain his land and dignity. Wright suggests that from enraged, abjective
experience, empowerment and transformation is not only possible, but also
essential.
Key Words: Alexis Wright, Carpentaria, trauma, rage, land rights, abjection,
parody, maban reality, emergence, belonging.
*****
1. Place of Trauma
You is in hell. 1
In this chapter I interrogate the tactics of opposition used by Alexis Wright in

her much lauded novel Carpentaria, 2 which subverts and satirises the European
92 Enlisting Rage and Speaking Place
__________________________________________________________________
invaders materialist worldview and their presumption of territorial rights. Wright
lampoons the Australian society that reels from its foundational rage, a
consequence of the colonial project, and chronicles indigenous subjectivity made
dysfunctional by inherited historic and cultural trauma.
Carpentaria shows an amplification of Australian indigenous traumatic
experience from the personal to the intra-familial, to the societal and cultural,
arising from the immense horror that for many the whole of their country is a vast
traumascape. 3 As Tumarkin argues, the past continues to inhabit and refashion the
present, 4 the desecration of country made wild a constant trigger, contributing to
contemporary dysfunction. 5
Three interrelated definitions of trauma are relevant in the Australian context:
intergenerational, historical and cultural. The traumatic affect of massacres,
dispossession and forced removal of children, the Stolen Generations, has passed
on to subsequent generations. Historical trauma and grief resulting from familial
and social disruption, has manifested as destructive behaviours, become re-enacted
in families, and carried forward as intergenerational trauma. Cultural trauma in
indigenous Australia can be understood as the culmination of the historical and
intergenerational traumatic process. It explains the detrimental effect of the cross-
cultural exchange with the British colonizers: loss of home, cultural memory and
language, racism, discrimination, and denunciation of spirituality and denial of
civil rights. Aboriginal connection to country is vital for physical, mental and
spiritual health; in many places traditional cultural lineages have been
compromised. Fallout from cultural trauma compounds as people deal with the
reality of social devastation: poor physical and mental health outcomes, family
break up, violent deaths in custody, homicide, suicide, and substance abuse.
The old gulf country men and women who took our besieged
memories to the grave might just climb out of the mud and tell
you the real story of what happened here. 6
By employing the heteroglossic, Wright has found a unique language through

which to testify. As LaCapra argues, productive mourning must occur to enact
healing, enabled through survivor testimony, and emphasises the cultural
expression of trauma as a means of understanding experience. 7 Bringing the
many-storied past into the present becomes a moral imperative for reconciliation.
2. Enlisting Rage
But this was not Vaudeville. Wars were fought here. If you had
your patch destroyed youd be screaming too. 8
Bridget Haylock 93
__________________________________________________________________
My reading shows that the novel is structured by the mobilization of two
different modes of textual production in conjunction: the maban and the
carnivalesque; thus is the reader privy to the legacy of trauma and the fire of
resistance, as Wright writes back to power and asserts belonging in a host(ile)
culture.
The narrative of Carpentaria is set around the town of Desperance, divided into
Uptown, where the whitefellas live, and the Pricklebush, peripheral overcrowded
camps, or human dumping ground(s), where the Westside and Eastside mobs live
in trash humpies, amid the muck of third-world poverty. 9 The Pricklebush mob
live next to the town dump, using it as a resource to obtain goods. Many of the
novels whitefella characters are grotesque: the thug Mayor Bruiser; the duplicitous
policeman Truthful; the absent corporation, the owner of the Gurfurritt mine; and
the fearful citizens of Uptown. Other characters are symbolic: Normal Phantom,
nominal head of the Westside mob and the river people, his fathers fathers were
there from before time began; his wife Angel Day and activist son, Will;
archrival Joseph Midnight - head of the opportunistic Eastside mob, and daughter
Hope; evangelist Mozzie Fishman and his convoy of bush mechanics following the
Rainbow Serpents dreaming tracks in their ramshackle cars; and Elias, the
saviour. Although the mining activity provides affluence, the truth is grim. In the
Pricklebush, the people acknowledge that the mine has appropriated their land, the
Uptown people, who Wright calls barbaric, reject the traditional owners, saying,
The Aboriginal was really not part of the town at all. 10 They go so far as to
neglect to mention indigenous people past and present in the official version of the
regions history. There was no tangible evidence of their existence. 11 Perhaps they
exist only as phantoms. Many towns across Australia cite their origins somewhere
in the nineteenth century, the founders blind to the fact that the land was already
storied. As Rose says There is no place without a history; there is no place that has
not been imaginatively grasped through song, dance and design, no place where
traditional owners cannot see the imprint of sacred creation. 12 But Wrights Uncle
Micky has a co llection of bullet cartridges, maps of massacre sites, names of
witnesses, verbal statements on cassette and other evidence that he collects in
preparation for the war trials he predicted would happen one day. 13 Will and
Hopes relationship, enacted off the page, offers a chance, with their son, Bala and
Normal as the elder, that the continuity of culture is ensured, and that healthy,
hopeful and creative relationships are possible. Eventually, together with nature
and indigenous ingenuity, the mine is destroyed, and the town evacuated and
washed away into the sea.
Wright is one of Marcia Langtons army of respectable, reliable, properly
qualified wordsmiths who write about this corpse that is still lying in the middle of
the room. 14 Wright says I want the truth to be told, our truths, so, first and
foremost, I hold my pen for the suffering in our communities. 15 She joins
Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Mudrooroo Nyoongah, Kim Scott and many others in the
__________________________________________________________________
long history of Indigenous Australian textual production, 16 where the indigenous
subject writes themselves in and asserts their belonging to place, in what Barbara
Harlow terms resistance literature. 17 Suzette Henke argues that narratives from
marginalised subjects often challenge dominant points of view, and bell hooks
agrees that writing from this cohort is never solely an expression of creative
power, it is an act of resistance, a political gesture that challenges the politics of
domination that would render us nameless and voiceless. 18 As Wright expresses,
Those of the Pricklebush mob who had taken up the offer to attend the meeting
listened, were stunned again by how they had been rendered invisible. 19
Successive governments continue to ignore Aboriginal people and, as Rose asserts,
the fact of ongoing ancestral belonging and ownership of land.
3. The Violence of the Carnivalesque
Those little boys were never told why they were in jail. 20
Wright shows settler and Aboriginal societies as entangled, each element of the
story nominally represented by a d ifferent narratological device: settler by the
richly complex and diverse heteroglossic, dialogistic and abject-grotesque
realism of the carnivalesque, of which Wright parodies the worst excesses; and
Aboriginal society by maban reality, with the vivid spiritual world animate. 21 What
is accomplished in the merging speaks to Langtons notions of cultural ideas,
when artistic traditions become engaged across cultural borders, the results can be
complex social phenomena. Not easily perceived or understood, especially in the
colonial and post-colonial worlds. 22 Wrights skilled perception confirms Mary
Douglas idea that absolute dirt exists in the eye of the beholder: satire shows the
conqueror an uncanny suppressed image.
Bakhtins carnivalesque is most successful when applied to literatures
produced in a colonial or neo-colonial context where the political difference
between the dominant and subordinate culture is particularly charged, for it can
offer a cogent analysis that is able to diffuse some of the overt emotionality of the
argument and instead use that energy to subvert dominant ideas. 23
In the carnivalesque, the tangibility of food, excrement and the body is
employed where the body represents the people, continually growing and
renewed. 24 Wright presents the human body as virile, broken or phantasmagorical,
dead, alive, golden-skinned, dark-skinned. Corporeality becomes a site of
contestation from which to interrogate and reflect back to the invaders, with faces
like dried pears. 25
Laughter transmutes the fear of dominant and violent authority. Bakhtin writes
that laughter creates victory over divine and human power, hell and all that is
more terrifying than the earth itself. 26 The defeat of fear is presented in a wry and
bizarre form, symbols of power are reversed, death is represented comically, and
Bridget Haylock 95
__________________________________________________________________
the terrifying becomes monstrous. However, in defeat there is rebirth as for Wright
renewal occurs through radical change.
The finale was majestical. Dearo, dearie, the explosion was holy
in its glory. All of it was gone. The whole mine, pride of the
banana state, ended up looking like a big panorama of burnt chop
suey. On a grand scale of course because our country is a very
big story. Wonderment was the ear on the ground listening to the
great murmuring ancestor, and the earth shook the bodies of
those ones lying flat on the ground in the hills. Then, it was dark
with smoke and dust and everything turned silent for a long
time. 27
This violent ending of the mine might read as transgressive, alternatively, as

offering a view of the depth of indigenous rage and resistance.
Carpentaria is a world of heteroglot exuberance. . . where all is mixed, hybrid,
ritually degraded and defiled. 28 Bakhtin argues that the laughter of the
carnivalesque is the continuing social consciousness of the people, which unveils
the truth about the power and mystery of the world or in Wrights words: If you
ever want to find out anything in your vicinity, you have to talk to the mad
people. 29 The carnivalesque perspective assumes the hierarchy is maintained by
the most powerful socio-economic groups existing at the centre of cultural power,
and provides a Western, androcentric viewpoint. 30 For Bakhtin the carnival is both
a popular utopian vision of the world seen from below, and a festive critique,
through the inversion of hierarchy, of the high culture. 31 One of the reasons that
Wright employs this technique is that for many indigenous people, daily life is an
awful experience of traumatic repetition, the carnivalesque, in offering the
temporary liberation from the prevailing truth of the established order, provides a
survival strategy. 32
4. Maban Time
33
The spirits would never let you forget the past
Wright employs Mudrooroos maban reality, which expresses Australian

indigenous worldviews, in oral storytelling and dramatic genres. 34 A Maban is a
Clever Man or Woman, a Shaman, holder of knowledge and culture, a person able
to interact and know the world in a way very different from the rational mode. The
scientific natural worldview rose to dominance in Australia with the invasion of
indigenous lands; the colonial project is the imposition of a singular European
Reality usurping local maban realities, and displaces the maban or shaman from
the world and the magic implicit in the world. 35 Thus are indigenous peoples
__________________________________________________________________
silenced, and their reality and thought censored. Wright calls this the massacre of
voices, which she resurrects using polyphony. 36 Mudrooroo believes that
indigenous texts should intervene politically and socially into the dominant
ideology; but in employing traditional story content and structure, they ought also
be enjoyable. 37 In using the maban reality genre in Carpentaria, Wrights story
encompasses the supernatural and the natural, and shows something of the complex
relationship that indigenous people have to living two-way lives, that is attempting
to honour their traditional culture, while compelled to interact with the Western
way.
As Wright describes, the way people tell stories: they will bring all the stories
of the past, from ancient times and to the stories of the last two hundred years and
also stories happening now. . . all times are important. 38 In a maban reality, time is
not linear, and various schemas may overlap. For example, Carpentaria opens with
the first chapter called From time immemorial describing monumental time,
wherein the serpent came down, those billions of years ago. 39 Wright then shifts
into cyclical time, writing about days doing nothing, 40 seasonal flows, and back
to down through the ages since time began. 41 And Once upon a time, not even so
long ago, 42 offers a beginning at once familiar to readers, which also allows for
the entrance of fantastical elements. The using of temporal discontinuity and non-
linear narrative structures performs the traumatic experience of displacement and
attempted genocide.
Carpentaria is woven with maban imagery: devils and spirits are found in
dreams, daylight and at night; Normal and Angels house is built on the nest of a
snake spirit; the sea woman is a death angel who lures men to their doom; Lloydie,
the barman, worships a mermaid locked in the wooden bar at the pub, a full-grown
woman moving like a trapped fish. 43 Norm is chased by phantoms; the giant in
the cloak or the giant sugarbag man of the skies brings the storms and hazes of
madness that Uptown calls the silly season; He knew instantly the town was
evacuating. The Bureau of Meteorology had called and translated the message
from the ancestral spirits. 44 What Wright does is embed the complexity and
wonder of the indigenous worldview, where trees whisper and birds talk, into the
narrative. She likens her writing to looking at the ancestral tracks of traditional
country, where all stories, all realities from the ancient to the new combine into
one. Our stories are like the magic which feeds the soul and the heart, which
sometimes flies above the bitterness of pure logic and rational thought and soars
like an eagle. 45 Norm Phantom keeps a library chock-a-block full of stories of the
old country stored in his head which he trades with others. 46 Wright is trading
stories with her readers in return for understanding, which might generate
constructive action.
Bridget Haylock 97
__________________________________________________________________
5. Hope of Belonging
Luckily, the ghosts in the memories of the old folk were

listening, and said anyone can find hope in the stories: the big
stories and the little ones in between. 47
Germaine Greer writes in On Rage that the colonial project has been successful
in destroying Aboriginal culture, leaving a self-destructive rage in its wake. She
suggests that Aboriginal man needs a political structure through which to focus his
rage and organise resistance. 48 It is Wright who actually shows indigenous men
from a hopeless position taking action. Her Aboriginal man enacts agency and
enlists rage in concert with nature to regain his land and his dignity, although they
might have that same old defeated look, two centuries full of it . . . they had a taste
of winning so they projected their own sheer willpower . . . believing magic can
happen even to poor buggers like themselves. 49 It is the white men who have no
agency, who fall prey to their own misdirected deeds, casual atrocities,
mismanagement and ignorance of the land. It is the indigenous connection with the
land that gives the people the strength to live their cultural law, to follow the
Rainbow Serpent dreaming tracks, to go to sea with the stars and wind as guiding
forces, to welcome the cyclone to blow everything away and create afresh.
Rose cites Dorota Glowacka in writing that one must continue as if there were
hope because to do so is still to refuse violence, thus allowing humanity a chance
to honour those gone before. 50 It is the indigenous woman who suggests that from
enraged, abjective experience, empowerment and transformation are possible, even
essential. And then you can go home.
It is from the land that Wright draws strength, The river was flowing with so
much force I felt it would never stop, and it would keep on flowing, just as it had
flowed by generations of my ancestors, just as its waters would slip by here
forever. It was like an animal, very much alive, not destroyed, that was stronger
than all of us. 51
Notes
1
A. Wright, Carpentaria, The Giramondo Publishing Company, Artarmon, 2006,
p. 60.
2
Published in 2006, and the winner of five Australian national literary awards in
2007: The Miles Franklin Award, the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal,
the Victorian Premiers Award for Fiction, the Queensland Premiers Award for
Fiction, and the Australian Book Industry Awards Literary Fiction Book of the
Year.
__________________________________________________________________
3
Maria Tumarkin chooses sites for the legacies of violence, suffering and loss
that have transpired there, and names them traumascapes. M. Tumarkin,
Traumascapes, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2005, p. 12.
4
Ibid., p. 12.
5
Deborah Bird Rose writes that country previously cared for in a traditional way
but now overrun and destroyed by cattle and white man, is described as wild
country.
6
Wright, Carpentaria, p. 11.
7
J. Bennett and R. Kennedy (eds), World Memory: Personal Trajectories in
Global Time, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2002, p. 3.
8
9
Ibid., p. 6.
10
Ibid., p. 6.
11
Ibid., p. 10.
12
D.B. Rose and W. McCarthy (foreword), Nourishing Terrains: Australian
Aboriginal Views of Landscape and Wilderness, Australian Heritage Commission,
1996
13
14
M. Langton, Marcia Langton Responds to Alexis Wrights Breaking Taboos,
Australian Humanities Review, Association for the Study of Australian Literature
(ASAL). 28 February 2011, http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/emuse/
taboos/langton2.html.
15
A. Wright, Breaking Taboos, Australian Humanities Review, Association for
the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL), September 1998, 28 February 2011.
http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/September-1998/wright.html.
16
M. Grossman, When They Write what We Read: Unsettling Indigenous
Australian Life-Writing, Australian Humanities Review, Iss. 39-40, September,
2006.
17
M. Grossman (ed), Blacklines: Contemporary Critical Writing by Indigenous
Australians, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2003, p. 2.
18
Grossman, Blacklines, p. 2.
19
20
Ibid., p. 320.
21
D.B. Rose, Reports from a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation, University
of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2004, p. 28.
22
M. Langton, Introduction: Culture Wars, Blacklines: Contemporary Critical
Writing by Indigenous Australians, M. Grossman (ed), Melbourne University
Press, Melbourne, 2003, p. 2.
23
P. Stallybrass and A. White, The Politics and Poetics of Transgression, Cornell
University Press, Ithaca, 1986, p. 11.
Bridget Haylock 99
__________________________________________________________________
24
M. Bakhtin, The Bakhtin Reader: Selected Writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev, and
Voloshinov, P. Morris (ed), E. Arnold. London, New York. 1994, p. 205.
25
26
Bakhtin, p. 204.
27
28
Stallybrass and White, p. 8.
29
30
Stallybrass and White, p. 4.
31
Ibid., p. 7.
32
M. Bakhtin, Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, University of Texas Press,
Austin, 1986, p. 109.
33
34
Mudrooroo Narogin Nyoongah, formerly known as Colin Johnson; b. 1939, is a
part-Aboriginal poet, novelist and playwright from Western Australia. His
perceived right to represent Indigenous Australia was contested in the 1990s.
35
Mudrooroo, Maban Reality and Shape-Shifting: Strategies to Sing the Past Our
Way, Critical Arts: A South-North Journal of Cultural & Media Studies, Vol. 10,
Iss. 2, 1996, p. 1.
36
A. Wright, Politics of Writing, Southerly, Vol. 62, Summer 2002, p. 10.
37
Mudrooroo, 1996.
38
Kerry OBrien, Hecate, 2007, p. 216.
39
40
Ibid., p. 2.
41
Ibid., p. 3.
42
Ibid., p. 43.
43
Ibid., p. 472.
44
Ibid., p. 466.
45
Wright, Southerly, p. 10.
46
47
Ibid., p. 12.
48
ATSIC, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission existed from
1990-2005. There is currently no organisation dedicated to indigenous political
representation.
49
50
Rose, Reports from a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation, p. 32.
51
A. Wright, On Writing Carpentaria, HEAT 13, The Giramondo Publishing
Company, Artarmon, 2007, p. 79.
__________________________________________________________________
Bibliography
Books
Bakhtin, M.M., The Bakhtin Reader: Selected Writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev and
Voloshinov. E. Arnold, London, New York, 1994.
Bakhtin, M.M., Speech Genres and other Late Essays. University of Texas Press,
Austin, 1986.
Bennett, J. and Kennedy, R. (eds), World Memory: Personal Trajectories in Global

Time. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2002.
Grossman, M. (ed), Blacklines: Contemporary Critical Writing by Indigenous

Australians. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2003.
Rose, D.B. and McCarthy, W. (foreword), Nourishing Terrains: Australian

Aboriginal Views of Landscape and Wilderness. Australian Heritage Commission,
1996.
Rose, D.B., Reports from a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation. University of
New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2004.
Stallybrass, P. and White, A., The Politics and Poetics of Transgression. Cornell
University Press, Ithaca, 1986.
Tumarkin, M., Traumascapes. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2005.
Wright, A., Carpentaria. The Giramondo Publishing Company, Artarmon, 2006.
Articles
Grossman, M., When They Write What We Read: Unsettling Indigenous

Australian Life-Writing. Australian Humanities Review. Iss. 39-40, September,
2006.
Mudrooroo, Maban Reality and Shape-Shifting: Strategies to Sing the Past Our
Way. Critical Arts: A South-North Journal of Cultural & Media Studies. Vol. 10,
Iss. 2, 1996, p. 1.
OBrien, K., Alexis Wright Interview. Hecate. Vol. 33, No. 1, 2007, pp. 215-219.
Bridget Haylock 101
__________________________________________________________________
Wright, A., On Writing Carpentaria. HEAT 13. The Giramondo Publishing

Company, Artarmon, 2007.
Wright, A., Politics of Writing. Southerly. Vol. 62, Iss. 2, Summer 2002, p. 10.
Internet
Langton, M., Marcia Langton Responds to Alexis Wrights Breaking Taboos.

Australian Humanities Review. Association for the Study of Australian Literature
(ASAL). http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/emuse/taboos/langton2.html.
Wright, A., Breaking Taboos. Australian Humanities Review. Association for the
Study of Australian Literature (ASAL). http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.
org/archive/Issue-September-1998/wright.html.
Bridget Haylock is a PhD of Creative Writing Candidate at the University of

Melbourne. Her current research and writing interests are focussed on the
expression of trauma and creative emergence in contemporary Australian female-
authored texts.
Crane meets Cranium: The Crisis of Representing Trauma in
Richard Powerss The Echo Maker
Carolin Alice Hofmann

Abstract
This chapter examines referentiality in trauma fiction, drawing on Geoffrey
Hartmans claim of two forms of traumatic knowledge that correspond to
figurative and to literal aspects in the narration of trauma. Specifically, it looks at
the textual dynamics of metaphorisation and literalisation in Richard Powerss The
Echo Maker, a novel about a young man who suffers from brain damage after a
truck accident. The chapter identifies both of these narrative strategies within one
signifier in the book: the cranes.
Key Words: Trauma representation, The Echo Maker, metaphorisation,

literalisation, referentiality, postmodern fiction.
*****
1. Introduction
Richard Powers 2006 novel The Echo Maker reflects a crisis of representation
typical of the narration of trauma. This crisis is caused by the impossibility of
representing the traumatic experience in spite of - or even because of - the
simultaneous, uncontrollable intrusion of traumatic memory. Addressing this
paradox, many scholars have commented on trauma as an inaccessible, ultimately
unrepresentable event. 1 There is, at the same time, a co nsensus on the imperative
need for testimony and narrativisation for dealing with the traumatic experience.
Moreover, accepting trauma as unrepresentable bears a d anger of rendering the
trauma sacred, and of thereby attenuating the actual political implications of the
suffering, violence, or oppression these stories - both fictional works and accounts
of lived experience - engage. 2 While poststructuralism claims that language fails to
testify to trauma as the referent is endlessly deferred, uncontrollable, and
inaccessible, we understand linguistic and textual representations to at least work
against this impasse. Thus, the postmodern crisis of representation, the idea of an
infinite deferral of meaning, is complicated by the narration of trauma as it heavily
relies on referentiality.
In a first step, I will briefly map out how a crisis of representation in
postmodern fiction correlates to an interplay of figuration and immediacy in
trauma narratives. I argue that the representational dilemma, which is at the heart
of trauma narration, manifests on the stylistic level of the text: in the antithetic
dynamics of metaphorisation and literalisation. In particular, my analysis draws on
Geoffrey Hartmans differentiation between figurative and literal knowledge of
trauma. As trauma fiction reflects the interaction of these two types of trauma
104 Crane meets Cranium
__________________________________________________________________
knowledge on the stylistic level, it mirrors the referential problem of postmodern
fiction. In my analysis of Powerss novel, I read the cranes as the signifier of both a
symbolic deferral on the one hand, and an intrusion in the form of the referent, on
the other. Thus tracing moments in which referentiality is negotiated, I elaborate on
how the need for, and impossibility of, a representation of trauma becomes visible
as the central image of the novel, the cranes, oscillates between metaphorical and
literal use.
2. Representation through Metaphorisation and Literalisation

In his frequently cited essay On Traumatic Knowledge and Literary Studies,
Geoffrey Hartman differentiates two forms of traumatic knowledge that are
seminal to my analysis of the textual strategies in Powerss novel:
The theory holds that the knowledge of trauma, or the knowledge

which comes from that source, is composed of two contradictory
elements. One is the traumatic event, registered rather than
experienced. It seems to have bypassed perception and
consciousness, and falls directly into the psyche. The other is a
kind of memory of the event, in the form of a perpetual troping
of it by the bypassed or severely split (dissociated) psyche. On
the level of poetics, literal and figurative may correspond to these
two types of cognition. 3
A brief survey of the role of symbolism/figuration and of literalisation in recent

conceptualisation of trauma fiction reflects the productivity of Hartmans
observation.
Assuming that trauma can neither be remembered nor represented like ordinary
experience can, a text may engage figurative expressions, such as metaphors and
symbols, in order to talk about a traumatic event. Hartmans perpetual troping, a
form of remembering the trauma, utilises the suggestive power of metaphorical
language. Etymologically, the word trope exceeds its generalised meaning as a
figure of speech: meaning change, shift, or turn in Greek, it insinuates notions
of displacement and circulation. Accordingly, words can be considered as circling
the traumatic event, trying to get at its core, but inevitably failing due to the
incomprehensibility of trauma. Scholarship on trauma literature considers
figurative language able to grasp that which lies outside ordinary experience. For
instance, Anne Whiteheads Trauma Fiction stresses the role of new modes of
referentiality, which work by means of figuration and indirection, 4 and Rosemary
Winslow argues in Troping Trauma, that the trauma world is ... made through a
metaphoric process. 5 In Trauma and Survival in Contemporary Fiction, Laurie
Vickroy states that the narrative power of symbolisation lies in the accessibility it
creates as an audience needs assistance in translating unfamiliar experience in
Carolin Alice Hofmann 105
__________________________________________________________________
order to empathise with it. 6 Ronald Granofskys The Trauma Novel shows similar
interest in the relationship of text and reader, and understands symbolisation as a
process of distance and selection, that allows for a safe confrontation with the
traumatic experience. 7 Overall, metaphors and symbols are multilayered, preclude
a definitive meaning, and can insinuate a futile re-turn to the traumas origin,
thereby enabling an encounter with the ungraspable trauma, which in turn suggests
a potential understanding on the part of the reader.
However, the openness of figurative language is problematic. Since the subject
of trauma narrative pertains the intrusion of the Lacanian Real, and is thus an
essentially definitive process, its representation appears to forestall indecisive
interpretations. There is, therefore, an inherent contradiction in the representation
of trauma through imagery, metaphors, or symbols. In literary text, this
ambivalence of figurative language shows, for instance, in the multidimensional
symbol, namely over-determined, obscure metaphors in fictional texts that can
function as signs of the victims obsession with the trauma. 8 The theory
furthermore stresses that traumatic material reappears directly, irritatingly, and
uncalled for. While symbolisation endlessly defers meaning, manifestations of the
trauma - such as symptoms associated with PTSD - pierce through the
metaphorical/the Lacanian Symbolic. Remnants of the trauma intrude in the form
of an immediate exposure which throws one back in time, into the original
traumatic event. As such, a traumatic experience entails an unprocessed, literal re-
exposure to the referent, and the story of trauma, - its narrativisation - is
inescapably bound to a referential return. 9
Of the trauma scholars who emphasise the significance of referentiality in
trauma fiction, Jane Elliott and Laura Di Prete highlight the narrative strategy of
literalisation in contemporary trauma literature. In The Return of the Referent in
Recent North American Fiction, Elliott argues that in these dramas of immediacy
the reader is privy to the narrowing of a gap that is both physical and
representational: from over there to over here, from image or fiction to something
closer to reality, from dead sign to living presence. 10 Other opponents of
figuration are instances of corporeal manifestations. For example, Di Prete,
referencing Freuds term for unassimilable psychic fragments in the title of her
2006 Foreign Bodies, reads the body as the central sign [and a] site of a paradox:
a loss made visible through a presence. 11
Overall, the crisis of representation inherent in the narration of traumatic
experience makes it an attractive arena for trauma fiction. Proceeding from
Hartmans claim, I argue that beyond the mere dualism or coexistence of literal and
symbolic representation, trauma fiction often relies on the interplay of these
narrative strategies, which leaves an unsatisfying, unsettling residue of neither/nor;
an incommensurable overlap and a resistance of belonging to either category. In
Powerss The Echo Maker, this overlap is visible in the signifier of the cranes. 12
__________________________________________________________________
3. Cranes as Metaphors
Metaphorical dimensions of the cranes serve as a means of discussing
psychological and neurological aspects of trauma outside the novels distinctly
medical discourse. Additional to their meaning as real birds on the level of plot,
their figurative use serves to negotiate the protagonists trauma and recovery.
The cranes feature as signifiers of Marks trauma in the perpetual troping of his
accident, and in their ambiguous connection to his healing process. Marks
memories compulsively circle back to the night of his accident, blending the near-
death experience with images of birds. This recurring evocation of cranes
corresponds to Hartmans perpetual troping: figurative language to render the
ineffable. Particularly in the passages of free associations focalised through the
coma patient, the struggle to survive and break through the surface of
consciousness takes the form of bird imagery:
A flock of birds, each one burning. Stars swoop down to bullets.

Hot red specks take flesh, nest there, a body part, part body ...
Face forcing up into soundless scream. White column, lit in a
river of light. Then pure terror, pealing into air, flipping and
falling, anything but hit target. One sound gets not a word but
still says: come. Come with. Try death. At last only water. Flat
water spreading to its level. Water that is nothing but into
nothing falls. 13
Unfiltered images of the traumatic event mix in a way that creates a conflation
of cranes, accident and the temptation of death. Later, seeking to understand the
events of the night of his mysterious accident and confronted with the
incomprehensibility of survival, 14 he revisits the image, and links the column of
white to an otherworldly presence: A ghost or something. Just floating up, things
flying. Then gone ... some kind of guiding spirit in the road, and I tried to kill it. 15
Thus, as Mark struggles to solve the riddle and work through his traumatic
experience, he ties a s urreal interference to the event. Imagining a witness to the
trauma - magical or otherwise - enables the explanation of the inexplicable,
allowing for a r eflection and almost an integration of the event. However, the
cranes are ambiguous observers. The idea of being watched by birds reappears now
and then in a rather unsettling way: as part of the conspiracy he suspects. 16 Mark is
sure that the cranes are directly connected to the accident. Although they are the
witnesses through which he seeks to solve the riddle of his survival - a phrase he
repeats throughout the novel - their presence at the accident makes them
suspicious. At one point he calls them animal spies, and incorporates them into
his paranoia from then on. 17
__________________________________________________________________
4. Cranes as the Return of the Referent
In The Echo Maker, moments of direct representation undermine the novels
utilisation of the cranes as trauma symbols: these intrusive gestures work against
the metaphorical and signal a return of the referent. This phenomenon is
particularly visible in the literal involvement of the birds in the protagonists
memory and understanding of the trauma.
The cranes appear as the return of the referent in moments of corporeal
manifestation, particularly in the night of Marks accident and his recovery.
Remarkably, not only the characters are confronted with materialised intrusion of
birds: the effect is not limited to the fictional world of the novel. Avian
occurrences irritate the cranes symbolic dimension at several points, where the
text describes recovering Mark not only as a b ird-like, but as a literally avian
creature, without providing contextualisation or commentary for the reader. For
example, he is described as lying in a hospital bed, engaged in a conversation,
when the text says, [he was] licking the canary feathers off his lips. 18 Here, the
novel emphasises the metaphorical dimension of the cranes to such an extent, that
the symbolism collapses into its literal opposite. The productivity of this
literalisation is enhanced by Marks paranoid fear that bird matter was transplanted
into his brain during the coma. The supposed incorporation of foreign material -
Hes under the impression that he might be part bird. - then, can be read as an
example of how the psyche makes sense of the intrusion of trauma material into the
consciousness. 19 Another entanglement of the metaphorical and the literal can be
traced in the image of the white column, that develops from trope to corporeal
bird. When Marks doctor Weber and another character go bird-watching and
suddenly spot a whooper, a majestic, white crane that is almost extinct in North
America, Marks mysterious image can be connected to an elusive referent, even
though a hint of uncertainty remains:
The ghost glides shining across the fields. Neither can breathe.
He grasps at a l ast hope. That was it. What was in the road.
[Mark] said he saw a co lumn of white ... He studies her face,
science wanting so badly to be confirmed. 20
Webers longing for a r eferent remains unresolved in the end, once again
defying clear categorisation into either the figurative or the literal.
5. Conclusion
A crisis of representation typical of trauma narration is expressed in The Echo
Maker through antithetic narrative strategies that represent the cranes:
simultaneously, they are literal birds and trauma symbols. In connection to Marks
trauma, the creatures feature as a point of reference for his recovery from the coma
and recur as tropes of the accident and his healing process. Moments of
__________________________________________________________________
immediacy, such as intrusive gestures of literal birds, undermine the symbolic
dimension of the birds. Because the novel is, at times, ambiguous as to whether it
talks about real cranes or their metaphors, it goes beyond Hartmans claim of the
interplay of the figurative and the literal in the narration of trauma. Rather, the
cranes exemplify how the two overlap in the same signifier, preventing an ultimate
classification into either the metaphorical or the literal.
Notes
1
C. Caruth (ed), Trauma: Explorations in Memory, Johns Hopkins University
Press, Baltimore, 1995, pp. 1-9; B. Van der Kolk and O. Van der Hart, The
Intrusive Past: The Flexibility of Memory and the Engraving of Trauma, Caruth
(ed), p. 172; and S. Felman and D. Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in
Literature, Psychoanalysis and History, Routledge, New York, 1992, pp. 57 and
248-249.
2
For example, in Writing History, Writing Trauma, Dominick LaCapra cautions
that, [i]n the sublime, the excess of trauma becomes an uncanny source of elation
or ecstasy, (p. 23). For a discussion of (un-)representability with regard to
postcolonial trauma fiction, see Jane Elliotts The Return of the Referent in
Recent North American Fiction, and Craps and Buelens, Introduction, in the
same volume.
3
G. Hartman, On Traumatic Knowledge and Literary Studies, New Literary
History, Vol. 26, No. 3, 1995, p. 537.
4
A. Whitehead, Trauma Fiction, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2004, p.
83.
5
R. Winslow, Troping Trauma: Conceiving (of) Experiences of Speechless
Terror, Journal of Advanced Composition, Vol. 24, No. 3, 2004, p. 609.
6
L. Vickroy, Trauma and Survival in Contemporary Fiction, University of
Virginia Press, Charlottesville, 2002, p. 11.
7
R. Granofsky, The Trauma Novel: Contemporary Symbolic Depictions of
Collective Disaster, Lang, New York, 1995, pp. 6-7.
8
Vickroy, p. 32.
9
C. Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History, Johns
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1996, p. 7.
10
J. Elliott, The Return of the Referent in Recent North American Fiction:
Neoliberalism and Narratives of Extreme Oppression, Novel: A Forum on Fiction,
Vol. 42, No. 2, 2009, p. 350.
11
L. Di Prete, Foreign Bodies: Trauma, Corporeality and Textuality in
Contemporary American Culture, Routledge, New York, 2006, p. 12.
12
Previous scholarship mainly focuses on the human characters in the text. If
mentioned at all, the cranes are seen as part of the ecocriticist project of the novel.
13
Ibid., pp. 12-13.
__________________________________________________________________
14
Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History, p. 64.
15
R. Powers, The Echo Maker, Vintage, London, 2007, p. 320.
16
When Mark awakes from the coma, he suffers from Capgras syndrome, a
condition which makes him believe that the people he loved most are, in fact,
impostors.
17
Powers, p. 325.
18
Ibid., p. 499.
19
Ibid., p. 533.
20
Ibid., p. 544.
Bibliography
Caruth, C., Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Johns Hopkins University Press,
Baltimore, 1995
Caruth, C., Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History. Johns Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore, 1996.
Craps, S. and Buelens, G., Introduction: Postcolonial Trauma Novels. Studies in

the Novel. Vol. 40, No. 1, 2008, pp. 1-12.
Di Prete, L., Foreign Bodies: Trauma, Corporeality and Textuality in

Contemporary American Culture. Routledge, New York, 2006.
Elliott, J., The Return of the Referent in Recent North American Fiction:
Neoliberalism and Narratives of Extreme Oppression. Novel: A Forum on Fiction.
Vol. 42, No. 2, 2009, pp. 349-354.
Felman, S. and Laub, D., Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature,

Psychoanalysis and History. Routledge, New York, 1992.
Granofsky, R., The Trauma Novel: Contemporary Symbolic Depictions of

Collective Disaster. Lang, New York, 1995.
Harris, C.B., The Story of the Self: The Echo Maker and Neurological Realism.
Intersections: Essays on Richard Powers. Dalkey Archive Press, Champaign,
2008.
Hartman, G.H., On Traumatic Knowledge and Literary Studies. New Literary

History. Vol. 26, No. 3, 1995, pp. 537-563.
__________________________________________________________________
LaCapra, D., Writing History, Writing Trauma. Johns Hopkins University Press,
Baltimore, 2001.
Leys, R., Trauma: A Genealogy. Chicago University Press, Chicago, 2000.
Luckhurst, R., The Trauma Question. Routledge, London, 2008.
Powers, R., The Echo Maker. Vintage, London, 2007.
Robinett, J., The Narrative Shape of Traumatic Experience. Literature and

Medicine. Vol. 26, No. 2, 2007, pp. 290-311.
Van der Kolk, B.A. and Van der Hart, O., The Intrusive Past: The Flexibility of
Memory and the Engraving of Trauma. Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Johns
Vickroy, L., Trauma and Survival in Contemporary Fiction. University of Virginia

Press, Charlottesville, 2002.
Whitehead, A., Trauma Fiction. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2004.
Winslow, R., Troping Trauma: Conceiving (of) Experiences of Speechless

Terror. Journal of Advanced Composition. Vol. 24, No. 3, 2004, pp. 607-633.
Carolin Alice Hofmann is a PhD student in the American Studies Program at

Leipzig University, Germany.
Locating the Trauma Womb: Ricardo Piglias Absent City
E.A. Leonard
Abstract
Many trauma theorists speculate about our ability to imagine and convey the
experience of a cr isis that is both unspeakable and irrefutable. Their reflections
evoke a sense of the profound disruption of being and belonging that mark a crisis.
Ricardo Piglias literary depiction of the aftermath of Argentinas dirty war is a
particularly postmodern response to these theorists musings; it demonstrates the
indirect inscription and displacement of traumatic experience. The body in a
postmodern world is not a singular centred identity. Many are interested in
claiming a piece of it. Religious groups, medical science, gay rights activists, racial
interest groups, feminists, governments, dictatorships - all want a claim to the
corporeal space. The body is a political site in a postmodern world and sometimes
it is problematic or dangerous to have one. Owning a body that has experienced
both cultural and personal traumas is problematic because it is trapped between the
past and the future in a place that is not the present. The Absent City serves the
purpose of reframing the personal postmodern experience of trauma and in order to
recuperate memory and the sense of the present, and to bear witness to the psychic
diaspora of the Argentine people. The central trope of Piglias novel is woman as
storytelling machine. She is a cyborg, a technological invention that according to
Heidegger, shouldnt be abandoned because of the challenges it presents to the
natural world, but should be spiritually shifted. Piglia chose this trope to do just
that and to demonstrate the profound misalignment that occurs when trauma forces
repeated abandonment of the imagination.
Key Words: Argentina, Benjamin, cyborg, Heidegger, identity, memory, Piglia,

postmodern, storytelling, trauma.
*****
In a lawless society, the body is the site of the refusal of the present and the
denial of corporeal rights. Owning a body that has suffered trauma is troubling
because the mind abandons the body, and is often traversing the space between the
past and the future, between memories and longing. And yet, even in this wireless,
virtualised world, the link is forged - we are both body and mind. And because we
are both, we can pose these questions: are we what we perceive or are we what we
utter? Should we rely on narrative to represent the ways in which we experience
the world? If not, what is narratives purpose, especially since the context of our
physical space seems to work against the organisation and condensation that are
required for sane and coherent narratives? And so a postmodern writer at the centre
112 Locating the Trauma Womb
__________________________________________________________________
of a traumatic experience might wonder what it would be like to articulate a body-
less space.
Ricardo Piglias 1992 novel, The Absent City is an important postmodern, post-
disaster novel that imagines a conversation between the living and the dead; it
becomes a meeting ground for perceptual space and uttered space. The setting is a
Buenos Aires that exists in accumulated historical experiences and that is
constructed by a matrix of stories, their tones reverberating from the untellable
violence of a dirty war. 1
Between 1976 and 1983, Argentinas government undertook a national
reorganisation project that produced silence and absence in the Argentine society,
silences and absences it then filled with its own discourse. 2 The Procesos goal
was to smother the spiritual malady of the oppressed who sought relief in
socialism and communism in response to Argentinas neoliberal economic goals.
To carry out their plan, the military censored newspapers and films, burned books,
and halted all private production of social and cultural knowledge. The government
envisioned a unified Argentine history and cultural identity, which the countrys
professors, students and workers sought to undermine. In broad daylight, tens of
thousands of real or suspected political opponents were marched at gunpoint out of
their homes and places of work and were never seen or heard from again. 3 The
authorities denied their disappearances and denied the repression. Instead, they
forced the reinvention of history. The result was that it became dangerous for
Argentineans to confront their recollection of the disaster; they were always at risk
of mis-remembering and forgetting. I n order to safely navigate the experience,
Argentineans coded their speech, veiled their memories and shaded the truth.
In The Absent City, Piglia responds to the spiritual malady of oppression by
creating a virtual space that allows the characters to challenge official versions of
reality, and to form a site that safeguards their truths. Much like the experiences of
the Argentine people during the time of the oppression, the novel is filled with
interruptions, fragmentations and unsatisfied intrigues. This is a story about how it
might be possible to recuperate the experience of trauma through storytelling -
storytelling becoming one possible way to give voice to the postmodern experience
of trauma.
At the centre of the novel is Elena, a cyborg who was once a woman and who,
through her stored memories, re-creates the absent city. She is an aberrance
invented by her husband, Macedonio Fernandez, in order to alleviate the loneliness
in his life after her death. Macedonio imagines how to recuperate an eternal
woman: 4
He was thinking about the memories that survive after the body
is gone ... [e]ngraved on the bones of the skull, the invisible
forms of the language of love stays alive. And perhaps it was
possible to reconstruct them, to bring those memories back to life
E.A. Leonard 113
__________________________________________________________________
... [t]hat afternoon he came up with the idea of entering those
remembrances and staying there, in her memory. 5
Macedonio shapes Elenas memories into a mechanised Scheherazade; a

cyborg designed to tell stories in order to sustain desire, but who instead narrates
the publics private stories of loss. T ogether they make up an absent city of
mourners who collectively create a network of experiences that is the internalised
understanding of post-dictatorial Buenos Aires. Elena is outside of the city and
everywhere within it; she creates memories that the citizens rely on to confirm
their experiences. One citizen describes how the community envisions her:
She is eternal and will always be eternal and in the present. To

deactivate her they would have to destroy the world, negate this
conversation and the conversations of those who want to destroy
her. 6
To them she is timeless and ever present. If they cannot locate her physically it
is because she is narrating the very existence that allows them to imagine her.
The stories Elena weaves are endless yet she only has the ability to form words
that provoke the imagination; she does not provide images. Elena exists only to tell
stories and to privilege the intersection of narrative streams but not to fix images
onto memory. Storytelling in this way becomes shelter from a justified world.
One of the overlying tropes of the novel is concerned with a s earch for an
originating language, one that would adequately express the experience of a
multitude of losses. Elena speaks to make these losses known.
In his essay, The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov,
Walter Benjamin asks readers to consider the implications of the bodily experience
upon story. According to Benjamin, both the storytellers and the listeners
experiences are integrally tied to the relative position of the bodily experience. He
writes:
Viewed from a certain distance, the great, simple outlines which

define the storyteller stand out in him, or rather, they become
visible in him, just as in a rock, a human head or an animals
body may appear to an observer at the proper distance and angle
of vision. This distance and this angle of vision are prescribed for
us by an experience which we may have almost every day. 7
According to Benjamin, the storyteller gains credibility in describing a shared

sense of reality and by having physically participated in the collective memory of a
community. The stories s/he tells contain something useful which provides counsel
that the listener can then use in the world. In turn, the listener imagines the
__________________________________________________________________
storyteller as both part of the fiction and part of reality. But in the aftermath of the
First World War, Benjamin disparages storytelling in the modern world. The art of
storytelling, he writes, is coming to an end. 8 By 1938, Benjamin believed the
storyteller had become a t hing of the past and that listeners had become
embarrassed to hear a s tory expressed. It is as if, he writes, something that
seemed inalienable to us, the securest among our possessions, were taken from us:
the ability to exchange experiences. 9
He believed those experiences had fallen in value because they had been
contradicted by mechanical and immoral forces that were beyond human reason. In
The Story Teller Benjamin summons an image that is both startling and familiar:
[I]n a countryside in which nothing remained unchanged but the

clouds, and beneath these clouds, in a field of force of destructive
torrents and explosions, was the tiny, fragile human body. 10
In the aftermath of the First World War, the act of storytelling moves from
within the bodily experience - from within the subjective bodily experience - to
outside of it. Benjamins death knell for the storyteller didnt come to pass. Instead,
the storyteller moves to the outside in order to narrate the unwieldy force and
power that is traumatic experience. The aftermath of trauma coalesces with the
physical abandonment of the centre in order to make room for the traumatic
experience that has been frozen in time. To tell a story about a trauma is to tell a
story about a hidden trauma. It is to create a cultural autobiography that divulges a
coded secret. The traumatic story is not impossible to narrate, it is just impossible
to tell the event as a whole. The postmodern story becomes fragmented, ruptured
and secretive to include a multiplicity of voices.
To tell a story in the 21st century is many things: it can define a moment, move
forward into the future, reassemble meaning, memorialise events and individuals,
and recapture loss. But often it does not restore meaning - a fact that defines the
postmodern tale. Benjamin laments the loss of meaning-making as indicative of the
loss of storytelling. Congruent with this loss, was the rise of the novel. For
Benjamin, the novel had nothing to do with storytelling. In The Storyteller he
describes the differences between the novel and other forms of literature, such as
fairy tales and legends. He claims that unlike both, the novel has no connection to
an oral tradition and does not enter into the culture in any significant way.
Benjamin isolates the novelist as well; writers are solitary individuals who are only
able to give evidence of the profound perplexity of the living. 11 Yet he doesnt
inquire deeply about the public life of the solitary writer. Instead, he imagines a
man in a v acuum - untouched and unaffected by the world around him. F or
Benjamin, meaning-making went by way of mustard gas and writers became the
unaffected recorders of the aftermath.
E.A. Leonard 115
__________________________________________________________________
In a particularly postmodern move, Piglia, turns the idea of the solitary,
disengaged writer inside out: Piglia, a novelist submersed in a totalitarian regime,
writes about a storyteller who tells fictionalised versions of real stories. In this
case, the storyteller is a cyborg who creates a virtual reality that forms a network of
plots, characters, cultural references, political propaganda, and media reports. Each
of the stories she tells attends to an untranslatable moment of terror: in the story of
Lucia Joyce, a woman is beaten and locked in a h otel room. In the story A
Woman, a mother abandons her young son to take a train to a distant city, where
she checks into a hotel and then kills herself. First Love is a story about a girl
who is trapped in a mirror by the boy who loves her. In The Girl, a child stops
using personal pronouns and to her fathers dismay, invents a language that
explains her experience of the world. In The Recording Elena comes nearest to
describing the violence of Argentinas military dictatorship: one day two ranchers
rescue a lost calf from deep inside a mass grave. The scene they encounter is
horrific and inescapable. The older man describes what has happened:
Theyd come from there and there and kill what they had brought
... people with their hands tied, in hoods. They would drag them
from the trucks without even turning the car radio off. 12
The stories intersect through shared images and artefacts, yet they refuse to
unify into one cohesive story line. Instead they trace a map of lost lives and
histories and only provide hints as to where their paths have crossed. This
interweaving becomes a roadmap for the reader who, during the course of reading
the book, will find that all discourse transits here. On this map is the literary
history of the world and this history contains all of the social and cultural
experience of the ages.
Importantly, Elena is a work of technology. She is an invention that was
designed to fulfil a purpose - to duplicate and disseminate stories. Technology,
according to Heidegger shouldnt be abandoned because of the challenges it
presents to the natural world, but should be spiritually shifted. He asks:
Who are we if cant recall? What does technology do to human

nature and to memory? Since we cant return to nature and we
cant abandon technology, can technology be used to shift the
spirit as the natural world once did? 13
In this technological age, in this age of multi-national corporate control, this is

an important idea to consider. Can we re-imagine a kind of technology that shifts
the human spirit? I n what ways are we currently and potentially subject to
manipulation by our own machinery and the machinery owned by our leaders?
Piglia imagines a machine - Elena, a storyteller, a femachine - standing between
__________________________________________________________________
those who desire to erase the natural world or to enframe it within their own
design. By retrieving and relaying the memories of the thousands of people who
disappeared during the Proceso, the storyteller becomes the way out of the
enframent. At one point in the novel, Elena acknowledges the multiplicity of
identities that have accreted to construct her memory:
I am Amalia, if you hurry me I will say that I am Molly, I am her,

locked up in the big house, desperate, pursued by Rosass
mazorca, I am Irish, I will say then, I am her and I am also the
others, I was the others, I am Hiplita, the gimp, the little cripple
... I am Temple Drake ... [t]hese and other stories, I have told
them already, it does not matter who is talking. 14
As a cultural memory bank, Elena uses language to reposition, re-inscribe, re-

imagine, and recreate the memories that form Argentinas cultural identity. Yet
inside the shattered history of this novel is a p aradox - the narration of the
impossibility of narrating and the impossibility of not narrating after the
appropriation of language and memory. Piglia imagines a space without borders, a
space without order, a space that rebels. The only response to the appropriation of
narrative is to invent false narratives, to insert conjecture, to re-imagine crimes that
the state wants to forget. Story is the weapon against forgetfulness. In one scene,
Piglia imagines a confrontation with the police who chillingly state their view on
the storytelling machine:
Shes at the external phase of the fantasy, an addict running away

from herself. She interjects her hallucinations and must be
watched ... [t]he police ... are completely removed from all
fantasies. We are reality ... [w]e are the servants of the truth. 15
In the face of such totalising propaganda, the lawlessness of the text provides
clues about the necessary response. Ricardo Piglia writes, That which is absent
from reality, is that which is truly important. 16 In The Absent City, he makes that
which is absent come forward. Absolute truth is replaced by multi-vocal memories.
Towards the end of the novel, Elena begins to speak in the first person, present
tense voice evocative of Molly Bloom, a character in James Joyces Ulysses. The
state eventually finds her and locks her in a museum in hope that imprisonment
will silence her. But she will not be silenced. She begins to narrate her own
existence, reminiscing about life in a body, as a woman who once lived and loved
and died in Buenos Aires. The story spreads across the city and enters the
imaginations of its citizens:
E.A. Leonard 117
__________________________________________________________________
I am full of stories ... I am the singer the one who sings ... I can
still remember the old lost voices where the water laps ashore ...
sometimes I have to drag myself, but I will go on, to the edge of
the water, I will, yes. 17
As with many postmodern texts, the ending in The Absent City is inconclusive.
Elena isnt a heroic cyborg storyteller weaving a new world for humankind to
occupy. But she is a safeguard of private space - a place where storytelling can
give birth to the imagination and can become a womb for the reintegration of a
society burdened by trauma.
Notes
1
R. Piglia, The Absent City, Duke University Press, Durham, 2000, p. 2.
2
S. Colas, Postmodernity in Latin America: The Argentine Paradigm, Duke
University Press, Durham, 1994, p. 124.
3
C. Osorio (ed), Memorandum on Torture and Disappearance in Argentina,
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 73 - Part I, May 31, 1978,
Viewed on 6 May 2006, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB73.
4
Piglia, op. cit., p. 127.
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid.
7
W. Benjamin, The Storyteller: Reflections on the Work of Nikolai Leskov,
Slought.org, Viewed on 2 April 2011, http://slought.org/files/downloads/events/
SF_1331-Benjamin.pdf, p. 1.
8
Ibid., p. 1.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid.
11
Ibid., p. 3.
12
13
M. Poster, High-Tech Frankenstein, or Heidegger Meets Stelarc, The Cyborg
Experiments: The Extensions of the Body in the Media Age, Joanna Zylinska (ed),
Continuum, New York, 2002, p. 18.
14
15
Ibid., p. 80.
16
Ibid., p. 142.
17
Ibid., p. 139.
__________________________________________________________________
Bibliography
Benjamin, W., The Storyteller: Reflections on the Work of Nikolai Leskov.
Illuminations. Harvard University Press and Harcourt, New York, 1968.
Brown, J.A., Life Signs: Ricardo Piglias Cyborgs. Science, Literature, and Film
in the Hispanic World. Palgrave, New York, 2006.
Caruth, C., Unclaimed Experience: Trauma and Narrative in History. Johns

Clark, A., Cyborgs Unplugged. Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and

the Future of Human Intelligence. Oxford University Press, New York, 2004.
Colas, S., Postmodernity in Latin America: The Argentine Paradigm. Duke

University Press, Durham [N.C.], 1994.
Dante, A., The Divine Comedy. Great Literature Online. 1997-2011, Viewed on 4 Feb,
2011, http://dantealighieri.classicauthors.net/DivineComedyThe/.
Osorio, C. (ed), Memorandum on Torture and Disappearance in Argentina.

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 73 - Part I. May 31, 1978,
Viewed on 6 May 2006, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB73/.
Piglia, R., The Absent City. Duke University Press, Durham, 2000.
Poster, M., High-Tech Frankenstein, or Heidegger Meets Stelarc. The Cyborg

Experiments: The Extensions of the Body in the Media Age. Continuum, New
York, 2002.
E.A. Leonard is an independent scholar. While interested in the most obscure

things of life and the universe, currently her research and writing is devoted to
unveiling the most well kept secrets of all times.
Trauma, Memory and Identity in Australian War Fiction:
A Practitioners Viewpoint
Tessa Lunney
Abstract
This chapter reports a n ovel-in-progress, as part of a t hesis examining silence
within Australian war fiction. War trauma is a potent source of silence, either from
the battlefront or the homefront. How can fiction which is nothing but words
express silence? If trauma and silence are the foundations of characterisation, this
problematises the issues of memory and identity within a character. Each memory
then becomes an action, pushing the characters sense of identity in unusual
directions. How do you work with this creatively, within a plot worthy of war
fiction? The bulk of my dissertation for a doctorate of creative arts is a novel, set in
Sydney and dealing with Australias involvement in the war in Afghanistan. It sets
out to explore the complex relationship between silence, trauma, memory, identity
and war, with this current conflict as the focal idea and inspiration. Silence, war
and trauma are intimately connected, both on an individual and national level.
Literal silences, where characters do not speak to each other, are one way of
expressing silence, but they quickly become repetitive. This has forced me to
explore other ways of embodying silence, such as indirect telling, deception, acting
out, clues and mysteries, half-told narratives, and unusual behaviour. War trauma
is most often experienced individually; a thousand examples of personal trauma
build into a collective understanding of war, both as a literal event and a
metaphorical framework. When individual trauma contradicts the national story of
war, it creates cracks and silences within memory, and within identity. Identity,
formed by silence, can be reshaped into skewed patterns within families. My
research led me to Holocaust survivor narratives, to trauma theory, and its dialogue
between literature and psychoanalysis. My emerging novel explores the
relationship between trauma, silent memory and identity through a modern war
setting.
Key Words: Trauma, memory, identity, Australian, fiction, war, silence.
*****
When I mention that I am researching silence and war, every other person
wants to tell me about someone they know who never spoke about their war
experiences. Great-uncles who were interned at Changi, a notorious prisoner of
war camp in Singapore, grandfathers who fought the Japanese army for years in the
hills of what is now Papua New Guinea their service is listed publicly on the
World War II nominal roll, yet to their family they leave nothing but silence. The
figure of the silent veteran, and the ways in which their silence affected their
120 Trauma, Memory and Identity in Australian War Fiction
__________________________________________________________________
family and community, are key links between trauma, memory and identity in war
fiction.
In the following short, intense scene from The Great World by David Malouf,
the slippery, potent, nature of silence is revealed and also why it must remain
unbroken:
She was looking past his face to one she had never seen. It was
the one he wore when he was too deep in himself to be aware
any longer of what he might have to conceal; the face he showed
no one, and which even he had not seen. 1
Ellie is playing hide-and-seek with her foster brother Vic and their family. It is
in the weeks after Vic has come home from slaving for three years on the Thai-
Burma railway as a prisoner of war. Vic is compulsively secretive; when he reveals
his true self, the effect is so startling that those who witness it are bound to him.
Writing about silence is like Ellie seeing the face behind the face. It is
searching for the hidden, to know the unknown or at least, to trace the borders of
the unknowable, and to outline what we cannot know. Caruth describes trauma as
the place between knowing and not-knowing, and I think of silence in a similar
way. 2
To understand silence in war fiction, I have been exploring the ways trauma,
memory and identity influence each other. Understanding silence is key to
understanding how trauma, memory and identity interact; by understanding the
nature of the silence, the nature of the trauma becomes clearer, as does its power
and pervasiveness in war fiction. My Brother Jack by George Johnston explores
the ways in which family silence around Great War service shaped the main
characters understanding of war, and how war trauma, and resulting violence,
shaped the identities of the next generation.
My Brother Jack was originally published in 1964. The novel is narrated by
younger brother David, and opens on f amily life during and immediately post-
World War I. Davids initial impression of the Great War is silence and fear. His
parents are absent, and their sudden reappearance on the troop ship in 1919 was
charged, for me, with a huge and numbing terror. 3 His parents, his mother
especially, bring many injured soldiers to live in the family home. He is left to
understand the war by himself, piecing it to gether 4 from trips to the veterans
hospitals, family sing-alongs of old war songs, and the obsessive knitting of
balaclavas by the disabled men who lived with them. David is explicit about the
wars powerful yet obtuse influence:
... every corner of that little suburban house must have been
impregnated for years with the very essence of some gigantic and
sombre experience that had taken place thousands of miles away,
Tessa Lunney 121
__________________________________________________________________
and quite outside my own being, yet which ultimately had come
to invade my mind and stay there, growing all the time, forming
into a shape.
And it went on for years. There was no corner of the house from
the time I was seven until I was twelve or thirteen that was not
littered with the inanimate props of that vast, dark experience ... 5
His sensitivity to the horror of war, and his parents extended absence, David
says made me something of a namby-pamby. 6 This is the opposite response to his
brother, the knockabout Jack. These early experiences help lay the foundations of
their characters Davy as cautious but opportunistic, Jack as generous and wild.
As the family silences deepen, so do the differences between the two brothers.
Meredith Snr is violent, which David describes as resulting from the war. 7 He
directs most of his anger towards his wife, at one point chasing her with his service
revolver; but he also institutes monthly beatings of his sons. 8 Davids reaction is to
hide in a cupboard, but Jack uses his anger to become an amateur boxer. Meredith
Snr stops beating Jack when Jack threatens him with retaliation, but Davids
beatings only stop when he loses consciousness and the doctor threatens to call the
police. 9 The unpredictable violence, and silence about it at the heart of the family,
push the brothers to the furthest extremes of their natures.
One of the most potent sources of silence is trauma. Some contemporary novels
address trauma directly, and use current debates about dealing with trauma as the
plots momentum. 10 However, what captures my attention is when silence and
trauma are so deeply embedded within the text that they are barely remarked upon.
Come In Spinner by Dymphna Cusack and Florence James gives an apt
demonstration of this embedded traumatic silence.
Come In Spinner was written between 1945 a nd 1947, and set in Sydney in
1944. 11 It examines a week in the lives of three women working in a beauty salon
Deb, Claire and Guinea. As James writes in the introduction of the 1990 expanded
edition, We would tell the Sydney story as we knew it, pulling no punches. 12 The
novel follows these women as they deal with everything from war profiteering to
intricate social rules to abortion.
Guinea goes home one Sunday, and her father is ill. He is described as gaunt,
bony and bloodless under [his] tan. 13 It is only in the middle of a s peech by
Guineas mother about financial prudence that we understand why hes ill It was
bad enough when your father was on relief work, but when his old wound came
against him on that road job and we just had to live on the dole ticket, that was
when the pinch came. 14
It is easy to miss the significance of this line, because Guineas father barely
rates a mention in the rest of the book. However, I was struck by its simplicity and
obviousness. It is never said that his wound is from World War I, but the timing
__________________________________________________________________
and setting imply it, as does Guineas mothers attitude of unquestioning support,
and the fact it is called a wound and not an injury. This implication is reinforced
when the family discusses war profiteering, and obliquely mentions post-war
government payments. 15 But it is the silence around the origin of his suffering that
seems to indicate it is a war wound. Wounded veterans were so much part of the
landscape that they escaped notice, and in the context of another war, Guineas
fathers trauma slips into anonymity. 16
In fact, most of the war trauma we dont see, because the novel is in the middle
of it. One of these instances is that of Guineas sister, Monnie, who is kidnapped
by her supposed friends and locked up in a brothel. She is only found when she is
taken to court for the crime of prostitution. Monnie is deceived, drugged, raped and
accused; but as this is unfolding through the course of the novel, the only reaction
we see is Monnies mute terror. That she is also a victim of war is made explicit,
and it is the treatment of women during wartime that is the thematic foundation of
this novel. 17
Damousi in Living with the Aftermath: Trauma, nostalgia and grief in post-war
Australia gives examples of the wives of veterans using the war as a framework
for understanding for example, that the odd behaviour of returned soldiers was
because of the war. 18 This framework is used as shorthand or an abbreviation, so
that the details of service or suffering do not need to be explained. 19 From
Damousis description, this framework was used to excuse, or at least understand,
anti-social behaviour and difficult personality changes within the veteran.
However, if the public perception of the war was negative, then this could mean
that veterans were judged without reference to their behaviour at home or actions
in combat. It is well publicised that community feelings against the Vietnam War
left many returning soldiers feeling isolated, and even vilified. 20 This often led to
anger on the part of the returning servicemen, and this comes out strongly in
Vietnam War veteran fiction.
In William Nagles The Odd Angry Shot, the language feels broken. 21 The text
switches between the first and second person, using the second person to remember
the past; The party tonight, you werent nineteen until Monday ... its only a day,
you shrugged to your mother. 22 This use of the second person is to exhort the I,
the unnamed narrator, to Remember: Remember how your back froze when you
turned around ... Remember the bus, chartered, seemed all a b it unmilitary ...
Remember when you got to the airport, seven days pre-embarkation leave ... 23
Nagle even uses both the first and second person in the one sentence; Strain your
ears a b it more, are they talking about us, making it c lear that this is not the
author-persona talking to the character, or the protagonist talking to the reader, but
the protagonist talking to himself. 24
Nagle also makes use of half sentences, splintered sentences, and one-word
sentences with no subject or verb. Travelling kit, shaving kit in a leather folder is
both a sentence and a p aragraph. 25 However, this is mostly in the descriptions of
Tessa Lunney 123
__________________________________________________________________
Australia; once the action starts in Vietnam, the prose is more flowing. 26 Nagles
broken language reveals a gap between the national image of the soldier, as heroic
and self-sacrificing, and the reality of their experience, with its tedium, anger,
hunger, filth and dubious combat actions. In the Anzac legend, this image stands
for reckless valour in a g ood cause, for enterprise, resourcefulness, fidelity,
comradeship, and endurance that will never own defeat. 27 This is a quote from
Bean, a well-known Australian historian of World War I. His ideas provide the
accepted language for writing about a war experience as Nagle tries to break
away from these ideas, his sentences break too. If historical narratives contribute to
individual memory, then the gap between Beans ideas and Nagles fictionalised
experience shapes the memories and identity of the protagonist, and becomes a
source of silence. 28
These ideas trauma, memory, identity - are ways, for me, of trying to speak
about the unspeakable experience. This experience need not be traumatic, but it is
life-changing and revelatory. It exists only as emotion and in the sensory realm
recalled as image, smell, touch, taste and sound, and cannot adequately be rendered
in language. Yet we are storytellers, we need language to create community and
belonging, we need to tell and to hear. Language is our last and best option for
doing so, but it is not always equal to the task - it cannot force the imagination of
the listener or reader so that they truly know. 29
To try and counter this, I regularly visit museums, such as the Australian War
Memorial in Canberra, to let my imagination stay in these painful places, to use the
artefacts on display as a glimpse into an experience that is otherwise closed to me.
I closely inspect the Great War tunics in their glass cabinets, and touch the cold
metal of rebuilt aircraft. I am particularly drawn to the black and white
photographs in the World War II display; such as one of five pilots, palm trees
behind them buffeted by wind, striding down a makeshift road on their way to a
mission. I cannot know what it might have been like there. But I can use my
knowledge of the tropics to imagine the heat and humidity - I can add the smell of
mud and unwashed bodies, Australian voices and the noise of wind - to create a
space within my imagination where stories of war, trauma and silence can be
understood. Within my research, Ive tried to work back from story to identity,
identity back to memory, feeling the silences as I go - working out their shape and
weight, their taste and texture - to know how they surround trauma. So when the
silences sit beside us, although they do not speak, they are as familiar and known
as the wool of granddads uniform.
This chapter is a report of a novel-in-progress, so I shall end with a small
excerpt. My novel is set in Sydney, and focuses on the Talbot family and their
involvement in war. This piece gives a brief overview of the familys military
history, demonstrating how silence can be built into the family legend, or slip by
unnoticed; how information is passed between generations, or how the right to
__________________________________________________________________
silence is fiercely guarded. This is about Kate, the 26 year-old granddaughter who
is home on leave from Afghanistan:
To say that Kate revered her grandmother Elsie wouldnt be quite

right. Kate had revered her grandfather Jack, Elsies husband,
World War II hero and solid, all-round Aussie bloke. Kate had
loved to hear his stories of his war service, begging him to tell
the same funny tales over and over. When she was twelve she
started reading about the war, reading books on the campaigns in
North Africa and New Guinea, asking her grandfather specific
questions about this or that action. Poppy Jack always had some
little anecdote that put real voices to the history, and his years as
a high school English teacher made his stories clear and perfectly
pitched to her age. She begged for photos and letters, but Elsie
said theyd all gone. In the months leading up to Jacks death,
Kate visited him in hospital every afternoon after school,
listening to his tales unravel and ramble over his early life. He
spoke about his brothers Mark and Pete, about Elsie, and a lot of
names that Kate had never heard of. In his lucid moments he
instructed Kate to talk to his brother Pete, whod fought in
Korea. Kate went over to Petes fibro shack in Blacktown, but he
refused to talk to her, Whaddaya wanna know that stuff for,
girlie? Its dead and gone! His house smelt of stale cigarette
smoke, mouldy laundry, and frying, and she didnt see him again
until he was laid out in his coffin a year later.
Notes
1
D. Malouf, The Great World, Chatto & Windus Ltd, London, 1990, p. 223.
2
If Freud turns to literature to describe traumatic experiences, it is because
literature, like psychoanalysis, is interested in the complex relation between
knowing and not knowing, C. Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative
and History, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland,1996, p. 3.
3
G. Johnston, My Brother Jack, A&R Classics, Sydney, 2001, p. 4.
4
Ibid., p. 5.
5
Ibid., p. 11.
6
Ibid., p. 10.
7
Ibid., pp. 36-37.
8
Ibid., p. 42.
9
Ibid., p. 47.
Tessa Lunney 125
__________________________________________________________________
10
These include Shira Nayman (2010) The Listener; Jonathan Safran Foer (2005)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; Pat Barkers Regeneration Trilogy, (1991,
1993, 1995).
11
D. Cusack and F. James, Come In Spinner, Imprint Classics, North Ryde, 1990,
p. viii-ix.
12
Ibid., p. viii.
13
Ibid., p. 206.
14
Ibid., pp. 210-211.
15
Ibid., pp. 216-217.
16
J. Damousi, The Labour of Loss: Mourning, Memory and Wartime, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1999. There is an illuminating chapter on how
maimed soldiers struggled to maintain a visible presence in Victorian society in the
interwar years that can be found on pp. 85-102.
17
Ibid., p. 551.
18
J. Damousi, Living with the Aftermath: Trauma, Nostalgia and Grief in Post-
War Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2001, p. 113.
19
The movement in contemporary fiction is to dismantle this war framework, and
articulate the specific actions and circumstances that led to individual change.
20
There are many studies that discuss this, but an interesting one for Australia is in
S. Rintoul, Ashes of Vietnam: Australian Voices, William Heinemann, Richmond,
VIC, 1987.
21
N. Anisfield, Words and Fragments in Search and Clear: Critical Responses to
Selected Literature and Film of the Vietnam War, W. Searle (ed), Bowling Green
State University Popular Press, Bowling Green, USA, 1988. The point is made that
fragmentation is apparent in many war novels, but even more so in Vietnam war
novels, and argues that this imitates the war experience.
22
W. Nagle, The Odd Angry Shot, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1979, p. 3.
23
Ibid., pp. 1-2.
24
Ibid., p. 3.
25
Ibid., p. 3.
26
Ibid., p. 90.
27
CEW Bean on Australian War Memorial website: http://www.awm.gov.
au/encyclopedia/anzac/spirit.asp.
28
N. Hunt, Memory, War and Trauma, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
UK, 2010, p. 121.
29
S. Hynes, A Soldiers Tale: Bearing Witness to Modern War, Penguin Books,
New York, 1997, pp. 3 and 25. N. Hunt, op. cit., pp. 43, 115, 162 and 197. Hynes
and Hunt both provide clear arguments for the centrality of narrative and
storytelling in relating war experiences.
__________________________________________________________________
Bibliography
Anisfield, N., Words and Fragments. Search and Clear: Critical Responses to
Selected Literature and Films of the Vietnam War. Searle, W. (ed), Bowling Green
State University Popular Press, Bowling Green, USA, 1988.
Barker, P., Regeneration. Penguin Books, London, 1992.
Caruth, C., Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History. John Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 1996.
Cusack, D. and James, F., Come in Spinner. Imprint Classics, North Ryde, NSW,
1990.
Damousi, J., Living with the Aftermath: Trauma, Nostalgia and Grief in Post-War
Australia. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK 2001.
Foer, J.S., Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Penguin, London, 2005.
Hunt, N.C., Memory, War and Trauma. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
UK, 2010.
Hynes, S., A Soldiers Tale: Bearing Witness to Modern War. Penguin Books, New
York, 1997.
Johnston, G., My Brother Jack. A&R Classics, Sydney, 2001.
Malouf, D., The Great World. Chatto & Windus Ltd, London, 1990.
Nagle, W., The Odd Angry Shot. Angus & Robertson Publishers, Sydney, 1979.
Nayman, S., The Listener. Simon and Schuster, Pymble, NSW, 2010.
Rintoul, S., Ashes of Vietnam: Australian Voices. William Heinemann, Richmond,

VIC, 1987.
Tessa Lunney is in the final year of a Doctorate of Creative Arts at the University
of Western Sydney. She is examining silences in contemporary Australian war
fiction, and the bulk of her dissertation will be comprised of a novel, about the
silences around one familys involvement in war. Contact: 16684531@
student.uws.edu.au
The Trauma of the Ephemeral Body in Michel Houellebecqs
Atomised and Oskar Roehlers Elementarteilchen
Imola Mik
Abstract
Michel Houellebecqs controversial novel Atomised (1998), and its adaptation to
the screen, the Elementarteilchen (2006) by Oskar Roehler present the personal
trauma of two protagonists embedded in the collective debauchery of the 1960s -
1970s libertinism. Bruno and his half-brother, Michel, representative figures of
their generation, are in their midlife crisis. Their problems are exposed as a direct
result of the glorification of young and beautiful bodies by the hippie movement
contrasted now with the lived reality of the ephemeral human physique. My aim in
this chapter is to show how this traumatic experience is configured in the two
media. More precisely, I would like to investigate how differently the two
characters react, solve it and how divergently the literary and film texts cope with
it. I argue that the Hollywoodising techniques of the film adaptation envision a
more sanitised perception of trauma than the novel does. This is achieved by
rewriting the ending of the book, and by reducing and domesticating its
philosophical flnerie into a more consumable visual representation of the body. Is
this technique a n ecessity implied by the medium of film? Does the seductive,
colourful and idealistic display of bodies on screen prove an intrinsic relation
between cinema and this corporeality? To address these problems, I shall delimit
the medium-specific aspects from the directors filmmaking choices. For this
reason I propose a comparative stylistic analysis of both texts by applying mise-en-
scne criticism to show how the traumatised body is visualised in a utopian frame
and to examine how novel and film shape trauma differently.
Key Words: Sexual libertinism, collective trauma, negative dystopia, naturalism,

therapeutic mise-en-scne, intensified continuity.
*****
1. Introduction
The contemporary French writer, Michel Houellebecq, now also holder of the
prestigious Goncourt Prize, seems to have been tacitly integrated into the canon,
though his blunt, provocative writing style still ruffles feathers, dividing critics and
readers into inimical camps. But the Houellebecqian post-naturalism, post-
humanism, post-romanticism, or however we may label it, stems also from the
delicate nature of the social problems his works address. Here I will focus just on
Atomised, which I call a criticism, or negative utopia (dystopia) of the sexual
libertinism emerging in the sixties. In comparison with this novel I will analyse
128 The Trauma of the Ephemeral Body
__________________________________________________________________
how its pessimistic perspective on the condition of the ephemeral human nature, is
configured in its film adaptation by Oskar Roehler, the Elementarteilchen.
2. Lived Trauma, Theoretical Roots

The novel commences with the prologue of an extradiegetic narrator, setting
the scene for the first character, Michel Djerzinski, an already well-known
microbiologist, who had decided to leave his job for a period. Some pages later his
half-brother, Bruno is introduced to the reader as being exactly the opposite of
Michel. While Bruno looked precisely as someone in his midlife crisis, 1 in the
case of Djerzinski, there was no sign of this. 2 Bruno is a failed literature teacher
and writer, who had lost his interest in life, and all he seeks now is mere sexual
satisfaction.
The following parts of the novel sketch the family history of both characters,
self-reflectively not dwelling on many details, just briefly summarising how the
spouses life intersected, conceived their descendents, how they divorced,
abandoned their children, and continued their happy, selfish lifestyle. Atomised has
been justly criticised by Jerry Andrew Varsava of social determinism, and of
following the pattern of the naturalistic experimental novel. 3 I argue however, that
this speciality of the roman thse, as J.A.Varsava calls it, is also a reminiscence
of the French nouveau romans intention to delimit itself from traditional
narratives and character-building, and focus rather on ideas. In Houellebecqs
dystopia, the stress is placed on the trauma experienced by the descendants of the
sixties generation, and, to the same extent, on the premise and ideological ground
that led to Brunos, Michels, and their girlfriends, Christiane, and Anabelles, and
a range of other characters tragedies.
The role of the mentioned outsider narrator is doubly significant. First,
because he presents the characters from a more distant and therefore critical
perspective, and secondly, because he has the space to develop his ideas about a
cavalcade of theories that contributed to the sexual liberation. The philosophical
discussions about such prominent thinkers as Socrates, Plato, Aldous Huxley,
Nietzsche, Deleuze, Sartre, de Sade, Napoleon or Buddha, are subtly worked into
the narrative, but occasionally also transcend it, forming substantive mini-treatises.
The names I list are not randomly chosen, all of these figures serve as ingredients
to the amalgam called New Age. Being faced with the deconstruction of the
representative personalities of Western thinking by changing the angle of
examination or pointing out just certain aspects of their oeuvre the reader may
also feel traumatised from being shaken from his/her (firm) beliefs in worshipped
icons.
Oskar Roehlers film leaves out this philosophical, ideological approach of this
social problem almost entirely, though basically it follows the narrative of the
novel. The adaptation is a commonplace Hollywood story, in which the
presentation of the sixties is reduced to the display of young, beautiful,
Imola Mik 129
__________________________________________________________________
occasionally also ugly bodies, for the sake of contrast. The mise-en-scne,
especially the dominating bright, vivid colours and the joyful music are meant to
recreate the jubilant spirit of this era. Although the Elementarteilchen envisions
also some of the negative aspects of the libertine lifestyle, these are overshadowed
by the celebration of the latter, surrendering to the voyeuristic-scopophilic look.
3. The Tropes of Trauma

3.1 Identification with the Victims
One might wonder what is so traumatic in the novel, if the narrator is a
postmodern flneur, who just strolls with the characters, observes them, describes
them, but does not interfere? 4 Well, this is not entirely so. Although his attitude
towards the subject is mostly impersonal, we can find many statements in the text
which reveal his identification with the victims of the 1960s generation, and the
principles they adopted. To support my argument I list some of the variations of
the books probably most frequently repeated phrase: There had been a mistake.
Somewhere certainly had been a mistake this would be the narrators
identification with Brunos grandmother, who blames her daughter for abandoning
her and not attending her fathers funeral. 5 How could things come to such a
pass? identification with Brunos pity about losing his relation with his son. 6 I
dont know how could things end up so wrong Annabelles perspective. 7 These
may urge the reader to also identify with the traumas of the descendants, or at least
provoke him/her to think about its causing principles.
There are many other examples where the narrators remarks express sympathy,
irony, or harsh criticism towards the characters/ideas, which induces more empathy
towards the traumatised protagonists. Take for instance the following sentence: At
the end of 1966 the grandmother received a l etter from her daughter, who found
out her address from Brunos father, Serge since Brunos parents wrote to each
other every Christmas. 8 The neutral comment suddenly reveals the almost
nonexistent relations in this family. Another observation is even more cynical: It
is always very interesting when others are talking about someone, especially when
they totally ignore him. In the end one may ignore himself also, and this is not even
terrible. Bruno didnt feel either that the problem concerns him. 9 The formulation
expresses the narrators condemnation of Brunos parents, who decide the future of
their child without involving him into the discussion.
The narrators comments do not ignore even the accomplished, successful
Michel, who does not seem to suffer from his early parental abandonment. When
for instance, Michels mother, Janine is dying, he explains calmly to his yelling
brother that she only wanted to stay young and kept away her children, because
they would have reminded her of her age. Besides this ironic empathy towards
Janine, the narrative voice makes it clear later that Michel could not have feelings
anymore. His complete alienation generated this apparent love manifestation. But
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in fact, he is also replicating his mothers choice by carrying out research on the
creation of immortal beings.
The film also uses similar techniques in order to make the viewers empathise
with the characters. Such as for example the enactment of Brunos session at the
psychologist, where we can read the effects of his childhood traumas also from the
doctors perplexed, exhausted face. The flashbacks here also contribute to a deeper
and more accurate understanding of the past. Michaels acting, his reserved, always
calm, smiling face, even when his brother tries to explain to him his disgust of his
wife and son, also functions as a commentary on his restrained attitude.
3.2. Naturalistic Descriptions of the Body

Another trope of trauma adopted by the novel is the naturalistic depiction
mostly of insects, whose abundance in the text permanently reminds the reader of
the putrefaction of the body. Such is the scientific description of the flies, bacteria,
larvae, which decompose the body of Brunos grandfather after his death:
His grandfather died in 1961. Under our climate the corpse of the
mammalians or the birds first attracts some flies (Musca,
Curtonevra), but as decomposition starts, new species take
action, namely Calliphora and Lucilla ... 10
Michel is faced with a s imilar spectacle, when his grandmother needs to be

exhumed because of the nearby bus station extension. He involuntarily gets a
glimpse of her skull and eye sockets, but there are many other examples where the
reader wouldnt even expect such shocking imagery. 11 The most characteristic is
the account of the young Michel and his sixteen-year old cousin, Brigittes,
jubilant, innocent play in the fields, when the narration suddenly starts describing
the Trombidium holosericeum tick-type, from which they became full of pimples.
In another instance even the baby Michel is presented in a disgusting environment:
His son [Michel] was crawling and wiggling awkwardly on the floor, slipping
every now and then into the puke and excrement mounds lying on the ground. 12
Besides these, the novel often describes the aging bodies of the characters,
especially that of Anne, Brunos wife, the ill Christiane or Anabelle, who has to be
operated on because of uterine cancer, but cannot be cured, and dies. The realistic,
unvarnished account of the latters medical interventions and feelings from her
own perspective: I have been disembowelled she said to herself I have been
disembowelled like a chicken, urges identification with her by raising awareness
of the perishable body. 13 The poetic technique applied here, which dominates the
whole text, is shocking a dramatic tool, which may lead the interlocutor to also
experience the characters trauma. But this is not the only method for causing
discomfort in the reader. The prolific use of obscene language throughout the text
Imola Mik 131
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plays a similar role by reminding of the animal-like human body, often referred to
as mere flesh, which, once starting to decline, loses its market value.
The transformation of the objects of desire into the abject is highly emphasised
in the novel. 14 This is not only due to the validation of the ill Brunos perspective,
as it is in the case of the film, but also to the narrators direct, blunt comments on
the exclusionist policy, which forces aging bodies to the periphery. These
reflections or acts of spites performed by the narrator do not have a functional
equivalent in the film text. 15 Despised bodies in the latter seem to be just the
visions of a mentally unstable character, thus an isolated perspective. The
Elementarteilchen, rather than exposing such repulsive imagery, indulges in the
cavalcade of attractive nude or semi-nude physiques. I think this is also due to
cinemas intrinsic relation to the body. If we accept Patrick Fuerys idea that
Cinemas discourse is the discourse of the body and that its core mechanism is
the libidinal economy that is, first and foremost it applies to the viewers
unconscious desires then it is the filmmakers most obvious choice to exploit this
aspect of the novel. 16 One might think that the reason for neglecting the naturalistic
imagery of the book is that film pictures may be more disturbing, but
Houellebecqs style is also very direct. Does then aesthetisation serve the purpose
of coping with trauma?
4. Methods to Overcome
As I mentioned earlier, this literary text does not help to surmount trauma, its
main goal is to describe it a s realistically and accurately as it c an. It rather
replicates these terrible experiences. However, its characters do try to surpass their
mortal condition. Michel succeeds in working out the method to reproduce a new,
immortal species, without the bodily distresses of humanity. But, paradoxically, he
is suspected to have committed suicide. Bruno flings himself into infinite sexual
pleasures, but will have to spend his life in a mental clinic. The novel does not
leave space for reconciliation, any attempt to rebuild authentic human relationships
is condemned to failure. The ironic sci-fi ending of the book, with its epilogue of
the new species, documents emotional, squirming humankind as past.
The film, in contrast, makes big efforts to cope with traumatic events by
emanating therapeutic effect on the audience. I mean this literally, as its most
powerful weapon is in this respect the uplifting luminosity of its pictures. One may
argue that the rainbow of colours deployed has the function of representing the
psychedelic hippy illusion, but the technique is rather more transparent than self-
reflective. The abundance of tight close-ups of the actors heads predominant in
televisual style; the advertisement-rhetoric, the use of radiating bright yellow, and
blue colours, put the viewer into a pleasant, comfortable state. However, certain
pictures are indeed so artificially intensified, that this aspect works as a negative
comment on the fake idyll of the sixties. I refer here to the pictures capturing
Janine driving with her son, Bruno to a hippy commune, and then to introduce the
__________________________________________________________________
two half-brothers to each other. Despite the flamboyant colours, the difficulties of
communication (big silences, Michaels refusal to hug his mother, Brunos gauche
behaviour) place the responsibility for the neglected family connections on the
hurrying, absent-minded mother.
There are also other instances of such criticism in the film, mostly manifested
in the acting style, the mimic of the privileged face another feature of intensified
continuity. David Bordwell describes with the latter term the style of contemporary
American film, arguing, together with other scholars, that Hollywoods storytelling
and visual techniques havent fundamentally changed since the studio days. What
we see today is just an intensification [italics in the original] of established
techniques. Intensified continuity is traditional continuity amped up, raised to a
higher pitch of emphasis. It is the dominant style of American mass-audience films
today. 17 Many prominent features of the aesthetics of this style listed by Bordwell
apply to the Elementarteilchen as well: the stress on close-ups, especially those of
the face, the mouth and the eyes, the exposure of nude physiques, the overt
narration, etc. As Lszl Galntai and Erika Fm also point out, this film relies
broadly on stereotypes, especially in the case of Michael, who seems to fulfil the
classical oedipal narrative, which contributes to the transparency of the narration. 18
When hearing about Anabelles health condition, he immediately goes back to her.
Though she wont be able to have children anymore, they will go to Ireland
together. The films final picture, even if just on t he level of fiction, envisions a
happy reconnection of the four main characters: they are all sitting on a sunny
beach, even Bruno and the dead Catherine. The song, which is gradually turned
up, Bob Dylans Its All Over Now, Baby Blue, urges for the burial of the gloomy
past and for a new beginning. It is a goodbye from all the traumas of the characters
and due to the release date of the song, 1965 also from the sixties.
5. Conclusions: Is Film Watching Less Traumatic?

Why is it that the viewing of a film, even a film about a horrific event, must
offer audiences a p leasurable or otherwise rewarding experience, not one, for
example, of sheer terror and grief? as Carl Plantinga claims with regard to the
Titanic. 19 I agree that most films do tend to offer such therapeutic narrative or
cathartic closure as does the Elementarteilchen, but I strongly disagree with the
obligation to do so. Take for instance Andrzej Wajdas Katy, which is indeed
traumatic and places the massacre at the end of the text, without offering any
goodbye-relief for the audience. However, the controversies about the Katy film
remind one of the inevitable political responsibilities when handling collective
trauma.
Wajda ascribes the decline of social, political films to the changed role of
cinema. Such films require a larger audience in order to have a social reception,
whereas today individual watching is more popular. 20 Wajdas second argument
refers to financial reasons, which are also relevant in the case of Elementarteilchen,
Imola Mik 133
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as it h ad been produced by the famous Constantin Company, which also put
restrictions on Roehlers choices, pushing the film towards melodrama. What
Marco Abel pointed out several times that the German companys producer,
Bernd Eichingers ideology is that one cannot film social critique, only
melodrama concords with Plantingas claim that films should be less harmful to
audiences and more delightful. 21
Taking all this into account it is obvious that the entertaining, therapeutic
quality of Roehlers film is a private, assumed perspective, and is not a necessary
medium-specific obligation. However, for a thorough understanding of the
consequences of the sixties, one needs to undertake the trauma of reading
Houellebecqs book.
Notes
1
Houellebecq, op. cit., p. 23, the translations from Hungarian into English are my
own.
2
Ibid., p. 22.
3
J.A. Varsava, Utopian Yearnings, Dystopian Thoughts: Houellebecqs The
Elementary Particles and the Problem of Scientific Communitarianism, College
Literature, Vol. 32.4, Fall 2005, p. 153.
4
K. Gantz argues that Houellebecqs postmodern flneur has the same
characteristics as its nineteenth-centurys predecessor and that Houellebecqs
writing is not so innovative as it has been proclaimed. The core of her
argumentation is based on comparisons with passages from Baudelaire. K Gantz,
Strolling with Houellebecq: The Textual Terrain of Postmodern Flnerie, Journal
of Modern Literature, Vol. 28, No. 3, Spring 2005, pp. 149-161.
5
Houellebecq, p. 42.
6
Ibid., p. 169.
7
Ibid., p. 242.
8
Ibid., p. 43.
9
Ibid., p. 44.
10
Ibid., p. 41.
11
Ibid., p. 235.
12
Ibid., p. 31.
13
Ibid., p. 283.
14
B. Dicken even claims that in Houellebecqs works the object of desire and the
abject fully coincide. B. Dicken, Houellebecq, or the Carnival of Spite, Journal
for Cultural Research, Vol. 11, No. 1, January 2007, p. 57.
15
Dicken, 58, argues that all Houellebecq fiction is about sustained acts of spite
against sociality and every form of bonding except, that is, capitalist exchange.
Dicken describes ressentiment, anger and spite as the principle leitmotivs of
Houellebecqs novels, emphasising that while anger may still manifest itself
__________________________________________________________________
through policy and can be integrated into society, spite develops into nihilistic
(self)destruction, disintegrating the social. Dicken proposes therefore agonistic
respect, that is tolerance in conflict or conflict in tolerance, which is the only
mechanism that can include anger in politics and hold spite at bay. p. 72.
16
P. Fuery, Flesh into Body into Subject: The Corporeality of the Filmic
Discourse, New Developments in Film Theory, Palgrave Macmillan, New York,
2000.
17
D. Bordwell, Intensified Continuity: Visual Style in Contemporary American
Film, Film Quarterly, Vol. 55, No. 3, Spring 2002, p. 16.
18
L. Galntai, A rgi csibszek nem ismernek engem meg, Korunk, Vol. 3, No. 4,
August 2011; E. Fm, Sex, Psychoanalysis or How To Get On in Life, Filmtett,
Updated on the 28th of February 2011, Viewed on the 28th of February 2011,
http://www.filmtett.ro/cikk/1159/szex-pszichoanalizis-avagy-mikent-boldoguljunk-
az-eletben-oskar-roehler-elementarteilchen-elemi-reszecskek.
19
C. Plantinga, Trauma, Pleasure and Emotion in the Viewing of Titanic: A
Cognitive Approach, Film Theory and Contemporary Hollywood Movies, W.
Buckland (ed), Routledge, New York and London, 2009, p. 238.
20
N. Hodge, Andrzej Wajda on Katy, Interview, 23rd June 2009, Krakow Post,
Updated on the 28th of February 2011, Viewed on the 28th of February 2011,
http://www.krakowpost.com/article/1388.
21
M. Abel, The State of Things Part Two: More Images for a Post-Wall German
Reality: The 56th Berlin Film Festival, Senses of Cinema, 2006, No. 39, Viewed
on the 29th of March 2011, http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2006/festival-
reports/berlin2006/. Cf. also M. Abel, Failing to Connect: Itineration of Desire in
Oskar Roehlers Postromance Films, New German Critique, Vol. 37, No. 1,
Winter 2010, p. 95.
Bibliography
Abel, M., The State of Things Part Two: More Images for a Post-Wall German
Reality: The 56th Berlin Film Festival. Senses of Cinema. No. 39, 2006,
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2006/festival-reports/berlin2006/.
, Failing to Connect: Itineration of Desire in Oskar Roehlers Postromance

Films. New German Critique. Vol. 37, No. 1, Winter 2010, pp. 75-99.
Bordwell, D., Visual Style in Contemporary American Film. Film Quarterly.

Vol. 55, No. 3, Spring 2002, pp. 16-28.
Dicken, B., Houellebecq, or the Carnival of Spite. Journal for Cultural Research.
Vol. 11, No. 1, January 2007, pp. 57-73.
Imola Mik 135
__________________________________________________________________
Fm, E., Sex, Psychoanalysis or How To Get on in Life. Filmtett. 2007,

http://www.filmtett.ro/cikk/1159/szex-pszichoanalizis-avagy-mikent-boldoguljunk-
az-eletben-oskar-roehler-elementarteilchen-elemi-reszecskek.
Fuery, P., Flesh into Body into Subject: The Corporeality of the Filmic
Discourse. New Developments in Film Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, New York,
2000.
Galntai, L., A rgi csibszek nem ismernek engem meg. Korunk. Vol. 3, No. 4,
August 2011.
Gantz, K., Strolling with Houellebecq: The Textual Terrain of Postmodern

Flnerie. Journal of Modern Literature. Vol. 28, No. 3, Spring 2005, pp. 149-161.
Hodge, N., Andrzej Wajda on Katy. Interview. 23rd June 2009. Krakow Post,
http://www.krakowpost.com/article/1388.
Houellebecq, M., Elemi rszecskk [Atomised]. Magvet, Budapest, 2001.
Plantinga, C., Trauma, Pleasure and Emotion in the Viewing of Titanic: A

Cognitive Approach. Film Theory and Contemporary Hollywood Movies.
Buckland, W. (ed), Routledge, New York and London, 2009.
Varsava, J.A., Utopian Yearnings, Dystopian Thoughts: Houellebecqs The

Elementary Particles and the Problem of Scientific Communitarianism. College
Literature. Vol. 32.4, Fall 2005, pp. 145-167.
Filmography
Elementarteilchen. 113 min., German, 2006, dir. Roehler, O., Script: Roehler, O.,
Writer: Houellebecq, M., Actors: Ulmen, C., Harfouch, C., Potente, F., Tabatabai,
J., Gedeck, M., Bleibtreu, M., Hoss, N., Kriener, U. and Ochsenknecht, U.
Cinematography: Koschnick, C.-F.
Imola Mik is PhD candidate at the Hungarian Literary Studies Department of the
Babe-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She led seminars on
Contemporary Hungarian and World Literature. She is currently writing her thesis
on the representation of ill bodies in contemporary literature and film.
The author wishes to thank for the financial support provided by the program co-
financed by THE SECTORAL OPERATIONAL PROGRAM FOR HUMAN
__________________________________________________________________
RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT, Contract POSDRU 6/1.5/S/4 DOCTORAL

STUDIES, A MAJOR FACTOR IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH IN
SOCIO-ECONOMY AND HUMANITIES.
Trauma and the Condition of the Postmodern Identity
Danielle Mortimer
Abstract
Trauma studies have been employed as a way to understand a l arge variety of
contemporary events. One area where trauma studies have become particularly
pertinent is in relation to postmodern culture. Critics who make the link between
trauma and the postmodern argue that it is a belated attempt to express the trauma
of previous events such as the Holocaust and the Second World War. They attempt
to locate the trauma of the postmodern within a historical framework. This chapter
will explore the links between the postmodern and trauma studies in an alternate
way. It will argue that trauma studies can be used to show how and why the
postmodern is not a response to a previous traumatic event, but constitutes a
current traumatic event in itself. This concept of the postmodern arises from Jean-
Franois Lyotards The Inhuman. As with previous studies of the links between the
postmodern and trauma, Lyotard, and subsequently this chapter, figure the
connection largely through the timeframe of the traumatic. A traumatic experience
can be considered as that which is understood later often too late, after the event
has ceased. Consequently, these events cause a rupture in the understanding of the
contemporary experiences of those to whom they occur. This rupture has led to a
struggle within postmodern literature to represent the postmodern, which has
alienated both postmodern society and its literature, since they are unable to form
an identity that relates to it, or has a recognised and understood place within it.
This chapter will look at the struggle to represent the postmodern-as-trauma in Bret
Easton Ellis 2005 novel Lunar Park, in which the individual, personal trauma of
the narrator is intertwined with the cultural trauma of the postmodern condition.
Key Words: Postmodernism, trauma, Ellis, reading, seduction theory, Lyotard.
*****
In recent years, there has been a s urge in literary critics who approach their
chosen authors, texts, or subjects through the perspective of trauma theories. In the
past ten years alone, trauma theories have been applied to literature from
Shakespearian drama to contemporary childrens tales, from China to Ireland, from
the 16th century to postmodernity, and from slavery to the Second World War.
This literary shift towards the traumatic is unsurprising and feels inevitable
given its pervasive nature at present. The term trauma, and the ideas that
surround it, have moved outside psychoanalytic circles, being called into use in the
courts of law, in politics, in support of movements such as feminism, in the
plethora of - often bestselling - autobiographies of traumatic childhoods by
138 Trauma and the Condition of the Postmodern Identity
__________________________________________________________________
celebrity and non-celebrity writers, and as images within the media. Trauma and its
after-effects are now a visible presence in everyday life.
In this chapter, I will explore one of the most problematic parts of the literary
engagement with trauma theories - problematic in terms of disrupting general, or
established, literary practice: the conflict that resides at the core of the relationship
between theories of postmodernism and theories of trauma. My interest in this
conflict arose from an attempt to read the 2005 novel Lunar Park by Bret Easton
Ellis through theories of trauma. This attempt appeared reasonable, since Lunar
Park contains many features that literary and life-story theorists have identified as
characteristic of trauma narratives.
Lunar Park is a hard book to describe; the narrator is called Bret Easton Ellis
and shares various traits with his namesake, such as a successful career as a writer
(he is said, like the real Ellis, to have written the novels Less Than Zero, American
Psycho, etc.). The narrators troubled paternal relationship is said by the real Ellis
to be based on his own relationship with his father. The narrators story begins to
diverge from the real authors when it is revealed that he had dated a famous
actress and, with her, fathered a son. The real author is childless. From now on, I
will refer to the real author as Ellis, and the narrator as Bret, to avoid confusion.
The story is set in the suburban house the narrator moves to when he decides
(when their son is a teenager) to finally marry the actress and set up home with her.
In a first person narrative, Bret details how his alcoholism and drug addictions
spiral out of control, how he struggles to connect to his son, and how the ghost of
his father haunts the house. Lunar Park is modelled on the Stephen King
framework of horror writing, but it also works in a postmodern way to tie the
criticism most associated with horror - psychoanalysis - into the story as it is being
told. The question raised most insistently by the novel itself is, where does the
haunting take place - in Brets head, or in Brets house? In his psychical, or in his
actual reality?
The novel seemed ripe for a t rauma reading as it is based around numerous
series of repetitions, and repetition is the key feature of trauma for literary critics,
as will be discussed in more detail later. Bret also narrates using the stylistics of
one who has suffered trauma, and is struggling both to speak about it, and process
it. Bessel van der Kolk, among others, argues that traumatic memories do not exist
in the past as memories that can be constructed and reconstructed into conscious
language, but as intrusions that take over the sensory present. 1 This can be seen in
Brets representations of events and characters. For example, in his representation
of his father, Robert, there is a symbolic connection to the sun that is maintained
throughout the novel. The presence of Roberts ghost is signified by the fact that
Brets house was sunstruck with light, and by ghostly snatches of the song, The
Sunny Side of the Street. 2 Robert is figured as a series of bodily sensations that
overtake and overwhelm Brets experience of his present corporeal world at the
time they appear.
Danielle Mortimer 139
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Lunar Parks narrative, I concluded, shows what Gadi BenEzer calls the
signals 3 of trauma and reveals a struggle to communicate that Shoshana Felman
locates in literary narratives of trauma. 4 Thus, the application of a t rauma theory
should, I believed, have opened the text up nicely. Instead, the text shut me down
at every turn. The text resisted this type of reading; it had the characteristics that
should make it ideal to be read in this manner; it just did not work.
The next step was to give up on that. Another theoretical perspective I had
planned to focus on was postmodernism, since Ellis is considered to be a
postmodernist writer. Cover, I thought, all bases. I read round the theorists of the
postmodern and postmodernism, and discovered in the ideas of Jean-Franois
Lyotards book, The Inhuman, clues as to why I could not read Lunar Park directly
through a traumatic perspective.
When reading a narrative of trauma, it is the original event that is of
exceptional importance in guiding the interpretation. The main art of reading
through trauma theories is to connect the original event to its repetitions. This can
be done either by tracing the original trauma through its repetitions (as Felman has
shown one can attempt to do in Henry Jamess The Turn of the Screw 5 and Roland
Barthes has achieved - albeit not with a trauma-study motive in mind - in Honor
de Balzacs Sarrasine). 6 Alternatively the literary critic may come to understand
the nature and importance of the repetitions through knowing the original trauma
and charting the way its representation alters throughout the text (as one can do in
Maurice by E.M. Forster, or as David Musselwhite has shown in relation to
Thomas Hardys Tess of the DUrbervilles). 7
To construct an identity for a text through its links with trauma theories,
therefore, the text needs, preferably, to actually include a traumatic event. This, I
began to realise, was what was missing in Lunar Park. It was a narrative with all
the characteristics of trauma, except for the traumatic event. Why, I wondered,
does Lunar Park not have one, even though it is structured as a narrative of
trauma? Enter Lyotard, who suggests that in a postmodernist text, such as Lunar
Park, the trauma that it tries to represent is the loss of origins itself which is one
of the conditions of postmodernity.
To understand how the notions of postmodernity, postmodernism and trauma
can be said to work together it is necessary, as Lyotard himself does, to return to
the seduction theory Sigmund Freud abandoned in 1887. The seduction theory
looked at how a young girl who was abused was traumatised because the seduction
came before she had acquired enough knowledge to understand what was
happening. This real seduction was thought to initiate a complex, diphasic too soon
to comprehend/too late to prevent timescale of traumatic experience of the
seductive event. This temporal structure, the duality between too soon and too late,
comes to the forefront in Lyotards work in The Inhuman, where he uses an
essentially seductive traumatic timescale to describe the postmodern as an event, a
trauma, in itself.
__________________________________________________________________
Lyotards postmodern event, as with a seductive event, causes a rupture and
opening in the boundaries that surround the limits of knowledge at the time in
which the event occurs. As is also made explicit in the seductive timeframe,
Lyotard argues that when a happening occurs, it becomes an event precisely
because it comes too soon in the development of that person or societys
knowledge for it to be understood as it happens. It instead takes place outside the
scope of knowledge that exists within that situation. Lyotard argues that [w]hat is
already known cannot, in principle, be experienced as an event. 8 It has to come, as
with the initial seductive event, too soon before there is enough knowledge
available to accommodate and understand it. Lyotard writes that [i]t is always too
soon or too late to grasp the present itself and present it. Such is the specific and
paradoxical constitution of the event. That something happens, the occurrence,
means that the mind is disappropriated. 9 For Lyotard, a breach is caused within
the mind of a society or a self by the gap that exists between what has occurred and
how it can be understood at the time it takes place. He writes that [t]he event
makes the self incapable of taking possession and control of what it is. 10 As in the
seduction theory, in Lyotards postmodern there is a high degree of alienation from
the self/society because the self/society, as it is constituted by the event, is not
understood. The condition of understanding the postmodern is therefore, for
Lyotard, essentially severed from those who live in conditions of postmodernity
while it exists as an event. The latent period (as Freud terms it in his seduction
theory) that Lyotard sees as existing between the understanding of the event and
the time it takes place means that an event - here of postmodernism - can only be
understood when it has ceased to be an event.
To cease to be an event, or a t raumatic event, within a literary reading,
however, there needs to be a return to the origins - an understanding of the origins.
This is not to suggest that all literary trauma-based readings of narrative hark back
to Freuds notion of phylogenetic inheritance, where bygone events are thought to
shape human identity for all time. The notion of what trauma is, the possible
responses to trauma and the identities it helps construct are shown by trauma
theories to be fluid, contextual and ever-changing in response to different calls.
However, in the application of trauma to literature, the trend has been to
contextualise in terms of the relationship between the original event and its
repetitions, and so for literary critics, however progressive, there has been a need to
make this return.
Critics have tried to resolve the conflict between postmodern and trauma
theories by arguing that the postmodern originates in specific traumatic events.
This origin has been located in the Second World War, in the Holocaust, in the
assassination of JFK, or in more recent events, such as 9/11. However,
postmodernist literature shows a resistance to validate the concept of origins, and
this historicising position is severely undermined by the fact that a common
original traumatic event cannot be located as a focused repetition throughout the
__________________________________________________________________
body of postmodernist texts. Most postmodernist trauma-based texts, such as
Lunar Park, are still structured around the traumatic notion of repetition. What
exactly, then, is being repeated in a postmodernist narrative such as Lunar Park?
As noted, it is always the original event of trauma that is thought to be repeated
in trauma literature so that a literary critics main interest in relation to the fact of
repetition is not simply that it is undertaken, but the identification of what is being
repeated. In postmodernist literature the concept of repetition acts differently. If
the postmodern is seen as an event that has disrupted the current mind-frame of
postmodern society and its individuals, it can be argued that a postmodern text that
reacts to this society does not offer anything to supply this demand. I t instead
presents a t ype of traumatic event that connects to Baudrillards concept of the
hyperreal, where reproduction loses contact with the origin of the real. This can be
seen at work in Lunar Park, a notable example coming at the novels beginning.
The opening line of Lunar Park is repeated twice; once at the physical start of the
novel on page one, where it is presented out of context and under discussion about
its effectiveness as an opening line, and then again in the second chapter
(beginning on page 45) - at what the narrator - and supposed writer of the text,
since he is said to have written Ellis body of texts - Bret, claims to be the
beginning of his novel of Lunar Park. This aligns the novel with the state of the
hyperreal, where what is represented is always already reproduced, but never
originates. 11 For the reader, the second time this line is used in the novel, it is a
reproduction of the first. However, for Bret, when it is used on page one of the
physical novel, it is already a reproduction of what he regards as the true beginning
of his novel, Lunar Park. Thus the novel begins (twice) with a reproduction that
has no origin; there is no original (real) beginning to Lunar Park, so the origin of
the text itself has been lost.
Techniques that characterise the postmodern, such as parody and pastiche, can
likewise be thought of as reproductions of something lost. A main drive behind
these reproductions, Fredric Jameson argues, is that postmodern culture has an
indiscriminate appetite for dead styles and fashions; indeed for all the styles and
fashions of a d ead past. 12 The description of the postmodern as a period of
indiscriminate repetition of that which has already died, and whose death is
constantly being reproduced rather than new life being created, coincides with
what Jacqueline Rose identifies as [t]he psychic time of trauma when things do
not go forward but repeat. 13 The repetitious nature of trauma means that it is
characterised by circularity, so that the trauma is repeated over and over, circling
the central event, generally without directly touching it. In the postmodern, trauma
loses its centre as there is no longer an origin to repeat, to circle, only
reproductions of that which has no specific origins but has been recycled again and
again. Postmodernist traumatic literature thus ceases to be driven by origins and
works instead through the idea of the hyperreal. The main repercussion of this is
that, as the trauma is reproduced without an origin, or rather, with a lost origin, it
__________________________________________________________________
also never terminates, since trauma in literature is generally resolved by a return to
its origins. The trauma of the postmodernist text can therefore be argued to be the
trauma of the hyperreal; it endlessly reproduces.
Lunar Park is constructed around this constant reproduction of its own loss of
origins. No specific traumatic event can be found repeated consistently throughout
the novel: instead the repetition of multiple events occurs within the text, with none
marked by the narrator or the author as more important than any other. The novel is
composed of repetitions of different events, and versions of events, that do not link
together, but clash with and contradict one another. This inability to discover the
original trauma disrupts the ability of the literary critic to perform their usual act of
connectivity between the original trauma and its repetitions, as no connection
between one event and the rest of the narrative can be successfully sustained
throughout the novel without being destroyed by other, contradictory stories. The
literary critic must therefore learn to read postmodernist trauma narratives in
another way. To learn to accept the loss of origins that characterises postmodernist
literature and the postmodernist condition of identity at present, and to read a
postmodernist trauma narrative like Lunar Park in another way; to abandon the
usual act of connecting the repetitions of a trauma to its original that exists in the
past and read trauma as a present part of a literary narrative. To read trauma as a
journey that is being undertaken within the telling of the tale, rather than as a
journey that has already been completed and is merely being represented.
Notes
1
B.A. van der Kolk and O. van der Hart, The Intrusive Past: The Flexibility of
Memory and the Engraving of Trauma, Trauma: Explorations in Memory, C.
Caruth (ed), John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1995, pp. 158-182.
2
B.E. Ellis, Lunar Park, Picador, London, 2006, p. 353.
3
G. BenEzer, Trauma Signals in Life Stories, Trauma and Life Stories:
International Perspectives, K. Lacy, S. Leydesdorff and G. Dawson (eds),
Routledge, London, 1999, p. 34.
4
S. Felman and D. Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature,
Psychoanalysis and History, Routledge, New York, 1992.
5
S. Felman, Turning the Screw of Interpretation, Literature and Psychology: The
Question of Reading Otherwise, S. Felman (ed), Yale French Studies, New Haven,
1977.
6
R. Barthes, S/Z, Jonathan Cape, London, 1975.
7
D. Musselwhite, Thomas Hardy: Megamachines and Phantasms, Palgrave
8
J.-F. Lyotard, The Inhuman, Polity, Cambridge, 1991, p. 65.
9
Ibid., p. 59.
10
Lyotard, op. cit., p. 59.
__________________________________________________________________
11
J. Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death, Sage Publications, London, 1993,
p. 73.
12
F. Jameson, Nostalgia for the Present, Literary Theories: A Reader and a
Guide, J. Wolfreys (ed), Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1999, p. 401.
13
J. Rose, The Haunting of Sylvia Plath, Virago, London, 1991, p. 110.
Bibliography
Barthes, R., S/Z. Jonathan Cape, London, 1975.
Baudrillard, J., Symbolic Exchange and Death. Sage Publications, London, 1993.
BenEzer, G., Trauma Signals in Life Stories. Trauma and Life Stories:
International Perspectives. Lacy, K., Leydesdorff, S. and Dawson, G. (eds),
Routledge, London, 1999.
Ellis, B.E., Lunar Park. Picador, London, 2006.

Felman, S., Turning the Screw of Interpretation. Literature and Psychology: The
Question of Reading Otherwise. Felman, S. (ed), Yale French Studies, Haven,
1977.
Jameson, F., Nostalgia for the Present. Literary Theories: A Reader and Guide.
Wolfreys, J. (ed), Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1999.
Lyotard, J.-F., The Inhuman. Polity, Cambridge, 1991.
Musselwhite, D., Thomas Hardy: Megamachines and Phantasms. Palgrave

Rose, J., The Haunting of Sylvia Plath. Virago, London, 1991.
van der Kolk, B.A. and van der Hart, O., The Intrusive Past: The Flexibility of
Memory and the Engraving of Trauma. Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Caruth,
C. (ed), John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1995.
__________________________________________________________________
Danielle Mortimer is a PhD student at the University of Essex. Her interests are in
contemporary US fiction and literary theory. Her current research project examines
the role of the reader in Bret Easton Ellis Lunar Park through the theories of J.
Laplanche and J-B. Pontalis, Jean Baudrillard, Jean-Franois Lyotard and
Wolfgang Iser.\
Writing Tortures Remnants: Sovereign Power, Affect and the
War on Terror
Michael Richardson
Abstract
American use of torture in the war on terror, what is routinely sanitised as
enhanced interrogation techniques, has not received significant literary attention.
Writing about torture and its traumatic affects is made difficult by tortures assault
on subjectivity, language and narrative. In its obsession with not piercing the flesh,
American torture renders bodies in their entirety social and political, flesh and
blood utterly subject to sovereign power and makes precarious the very
possibility of a speaking subject. Narratives are ruptured and produced; after, the
event remains without closure, unable to become memory. This chapter takes an
inter-disciplinary approach to understanding the torture that occurred at Abu
Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere, grounding its analysis in examples from
literature, documentary cinema, memoir and confidential correspondence with an
anonymous American military intelligence officer, and exploring the problem of
writing the traumatic remnants of that torture. Agambens work on sovereignty and
biopower is used to show how bodies become wholly penetrated by American
power, while affect theory, following both Tomkins and Deleuze, provides the
conceptual apparatus for an expanded understanding of bodies, and for exploring
relations between tortured and torturing bodies. The authors own fictional work-
in-progress on detention and torture during the war on terror frames both the
challenges and possibilities in the practice of writing the consequences of torture.
The work of Felman and Laub on testimony, and that of Agamben on what he calls
neither the dead nor the survivors but what remains between, provide the basis
for an ethic of writing built on the traces of trauma, the remnants of torture that are
ever-present in bodies, yet to become memory.
Key Words: Torture, creative writing, war on terror, affect theory, power,
narrative, Agamben.
*****
The war on terror is something new. Its name alone is revealing: a war not on
another state or crime or drugs or even terrorism, but a war on an affect. On terror
itself. As if the only way to banish the fear erupting from 9/11 were to take up arms
against it. Can we be surprised that in a war that is as much discursive as material,
American torture is sanitised as enhanced interrogation? Or that it is given a legal
edifice and scientific faade, and considered somehow humane because it consists
of sleep deprivation rather than electrocution; waterboarding, not hot pokers; stress
positions, not the rack. In refusing to pierce the flesh such torture seeks to take up
146 Writing Tortures Remnants
__________________________________________________________________
the body whole, to make the entirety of being its victim, and reinscribe its own
power and security. Narratives are ruptured, written and written over; after, the act
remains without closure, resists representation and is unable to be made memory.
How, then, to write and write creatively of such torture?
In this chapter I interrogate the dynamics of American state torture during the
war on terror, both in terms of power and the affective relation of bodies, to
suggest an ethic of writing its traumatic remnants in fiction.
1. Power and the Tortured Body

In modernity, with more of life continually made subject to sovereign power,
whether through human rights codes or anti-terror surveillance laws, the immediate
potential of humanity is, increasingly, to be cast into a state of exception; a space
in which law no longer applies yet the force of itself remains. 1 This possibility is
central to biopower, which Foucault saw as the fundamental dynamic of modern
states. 2 We might think of biopower in Giorgio Agambens terms as the concrete
ways in which power penetrates subjects' very bodies and forms of life. 3
Biopower achieves its pinnacle in what Agamben calls the camp, a p urely
biopolitical space lacking any mediation between life and power, epitomised by the
Nazi concentration camps where inhabitants were stripped of every political status
and wholly reduced to bare life. 4
There are no crematoriums at Guantanamo, Bagram Air Base or the CIA black
sites, yet a similarity of form is discernible. 5 They operate as spaces of exception,
they seek to make bodies utterly subject to power and it is their status as camp
positioned within states of exception, outside the code but within the force of law
that makes possible the torture chamber. Thus, in a cer tain sense, the torture
chamber is a kind of camp writ small: it is this body here subjected to raw
sovereign power in this moment now. Survival, a co re requirement of American
torture, transforms enemy combatants into symbols of power and security, while
affirming to the American state that its ideals remain intact, the flesh has not been
pierced. The subject is subsumed into the singularity of American power, making
that power real both to itself and to the world.
Biopower, then, helps us understand the forces at work on the body but poses a
problem, too: how when the end of biopower is subjugation of the subject to
power, can such a body speak?
2. Affect in the Torture Chamber

Bodies, tortured or otherwise, are flesh, but also political and social, fluid and
relational. Deleuze, following Spinoza, suggests that the body is constituted by
both the capacity for affecting and being affected. 6 Bodies are thus sites of
potential unlocked in encounter, in the collision of surfaces, in the affects
connecting body to world and world to body. For Silvan Tomkins, affect is not
restricted to such Deleuzian abstractions; they are biological, relational and
Michael Richardson 147
__________________________________________________________________
specific. 7 Each involves bodily reactions; they are felt on the surface of the skin, in
the movement of the face, the set of the shoulders, the widening of the eyes. They
are messy, sticky, visceral; they exist not only in the body but also in the dynamic
encounter between one body and another. An encounter in which affects are
provoked and incited, amplified and modulated in the in-between of bodies in
relation.
In the torture chamber four affects dominate. Disgust the torturers disgust at
the abject victim, a dehumanising necessary for the infliction of pain, and, too, the
victims self-disgust. Fear the victims fear of the torturer and of their own
weakness, the torturer breathing in that fear, fuelled by it and yet fearful himself of
going too far or of failing to break the victim. Shame the shame of being made
abject before another, of subjecting another to such horror, of the others body,
whether victim or torturer, made violently intimate. And, above and amplified by
all of these, there is pain. 8
The victim, writes Jean Amry, of pain through torture experiences his body as
never before. In self-negation, his flesh becomes a total reality. 9 Indeed, it is pain
that confers what Elaine Scarry calls its incontestable reality on power and thus
makes possible the biopolitical project of torture. 10 More than any other affect,
pain is what also renders silent the speaking subject and enacts tortures violent
rupturing of narrative. Pain works against language; exposing its inability to fully
integrate bodily experience into representation. Yet pain is contingent, it d epends
on the presence of another. 11
This other, the torturer, cannot remain unaffected either. As an American
intelligence officer who works with those foreign services that torture on behalf of
the United States reveals: You do not need touchy feely people in
interrogations. 12 Thus he deflects inquiry into himself, retreats into the supposed
clarity of national security ideology, and seems to slip unaware over his own
emotional silences. His communication skills are outstanding, his capacity for
analysis clear, but a paucity of reflection reigns when writing of witnessing
trauma. 13 He seeks to limit affect by compartmentalising those horrors; an attempt
to prevent affect being amplified in a positive feedback process. Not displaying
affect means not being exposed to self-revelation and hence to the cost and
consequence, at the level of selfhood, of his actions.
In certain acts of torture, in singular moments or over long hours, affects
alone or in shifting complexes reach a feverish intensity. Such affects do not
occur then vanish away. They linger, stick to skin and slide between bodies;
eliciting what Tomkins calls scripts for their own containment. 14 They not only
last but resonate, sediment, mutate with the passage of time. And this has
implications for how we not only understand torture and its affect on narrative, but
how we might write it.
__________________________________________________________________
3. Writing Tortures Remnants
Disrupting the bodys relation to narrative is the purpose of each of the core
techniques of American enhanced interrogation. Sleep deprivation and erratic
scheduling of meals and showers violently disturbs the prisoners sense of time.
Sensory assault traumatises the relationship between the prisoner and the world.
Stress positions prevent the simplest of movements that allow a body to affect and
be affected by the world. Waterboarding brings the prisoner to the brink of the
complete cessation of narrative. Affect is at work in each instance. Pain of noise
and light, of forced standing and convulsing lungs; fear of what is to come, of the
unknown next instant; the shame of being made helpless; the disgust inherent to
such awful intimacy of self and other.
Whoever was tortured, writes Jean Amry, stays tortured. 15 Felman
unpacks this idea further:
[Survivors] live not with memories of the past, but with an event
that could not and did not proceed through to its completion, has
no ending, attained no closure, and therefore ... continues into the
present and is current in every respect. 16
A sense of self is fractured, rendered unstable. Familiar affective patterns are

disrupted; continuity and psychic cohesion are destroyed or deeply wounded; and
agency is radically limited. Yet while for the victim coherent narrative is torn
asunder, a new narrative is also written like the sentence of Kafkas penal colony
onto the body, a narrative of sovereign power. This is the purpose of Winstons
torture in Orwells 1984: not only the subjection of the body but, in his final
submission to Big Brother, a re-writing of narrative from personal and political to
biopolitical. 17 Thus the taxi driver snatched from a road outside Kandahar becomes
a terrorist; the failed, bumbling twentieth hijacker becomes an intimate of bin
Laden.
For writers of fiction, the problem is not simply how to write of torture but how
to write torture itself. Not merely its instance, but also its consequence. At issue is
a kind of distance: how can any telling bridge or speak over, the collapse of
bridges, and yet, narrate at the same time the process and event of the collapse? 18
One possibility is testimony, such as those given to human rights organisations or
written in memoirs. 19 Though powerful and vital, these run up against a cer tain
limit: testimony is itself, it says only what it can say. Its conventions distrust
introspection or the assertion of meaning. Accounts are delivered in direct
language, such as this from the ICRC report on the treatment of detainees in CIA
custody:
I woke up, naked, strapped to a bed, in a very white room I

was transferred to a chair where I was kept shackled During
__________________________________________________________________
this time I developed blisters on the underside of my legs due to
the constant sitting 20
An echoing voice emptied of tone and feeling can be heard in the torturer
interviewed in the Greek documentary Your Neighbours Son, and those of Abu
Ghraib in Standard Operating Procedure. 21 As if the violent and sticky sediments
of affect prevent the articulation of emotional meaning; for the tortured there is the
numbing of trauma while for the torturer, the self-exculpating distance and denial
of guilt.
Literary writing, I would suggest, has the capacity not to say more than such
testimony, but to say something other than it, to unmask not only the experience of
torture and the trauma of living with it, but to also engage its dynamics. But how
can what is in its very occurrence an assault on narrative be narrated?
Writing of the Holocaust, Agamben has this to say: the remnants of Auschwitz
the witnesses are neither the dead nor the survivors, neither the drowned nor
the saved. They are what remains between them. 22 What remains between are
fragments of narrative, like broken logs tumbling in a fast river, breaking the
surface to rear dangerously upwards or strike unseen from below. Peter, the torture
survivor of Arthur Koestlers Arrival and Departure, is literally paralysed by such
remnants: his leg, once burned by cigarettes, refuses to move, he is bound to his
bed, past is present, rising and falling in intensity. 23
This word remnants recalls too the affective relations of bodies. Not dead
remains but something living; capable of metastasising or moving through the
body like a shard of glass. Can affect theory help not only to understand what
occurs in torture and how it lingers, but, by granting a vocabulary for bodies in
relation to one another, also help to write its trauma? An ethic of writing torture,
writing its remnants, offers the potential not to displace or supplant testimony, but
to draw from it and speak beside it.
Part of my doctoral research is a work of fiction that grapples with this
problem. My novel begins with two narratives one of a human rights activist, the
other of a young US Army interrogator. A rupture occurs at the centre of the text as
one is interrogated and tortured by the other. The continuity of narrative breaks,
becomes psych reports, interrogation logs, military orders, newspaper reports,
interview transcripts. The structure thus not only shows the rupture of the victims
narrative, but also the production of new narratives, new truths. The act of torture
itself is not narrated directly but lived in its aftermath. Years later, the two men are
brought together and the intertwining of their ruptured, re-written and
contaminated narratives emerges. Here resides the contagion of torture, its
traumatic remnants in the lives of both victim and torturer; its seemingly unending
presence within ongoing narratives. Where the first part of the book moves
casually between present-tense and past-tense memory, in the latter half the present
tense is inescapable. The affects of torture its pain, fear, shame and disgust
__________________________________________________________________
stick, collect and erupt within the narrative; the discursive climate of the war on
terror predominates, shapes language and action. The act of torture does not remain
unsaid, or to be more precise, it is said in a fragmentary way. My aim is to
destabilise the idea that narrative is able to move forward without fragments of
torture contaminating it, preventing certain outcomes, and overwhelming, at times,
the notion of a self existing solely, even primarily, in the here and now.
What ethic of writing fiction, then, is to be drawn from all this?
First, resist the urge to tell a simple story of good and evil and embrace the
complex reality of torture. Tell the torturers story as well as that of the victim, not
to elicit sympathy but to create a deeper fictive space for their encounter. Embrace,
too, the complexities of guilt, justification, redemption and anger that shape and
fold back on the remnants of affect.
Second, make choices of language conscious of body, world and the relations
between them. Allow emotion to escape the confines of typical subjectivity he
felt shame and become visceral shame clung to his skin. Allow trauma to
intrude in the present tense, not flashback; let there be sticky remnants that are not
assigned to the past tense of memory but written alongside the now.
Third, let the structure of the fiction enact tortures own rupturing. By
beginning in the process of writing not with the horror of the act, but with the
creation of narratives that are pierced by it, the writing of torture can be grounded
in what the act breaks as well as its own destructive mechanics.
Fourth, be open to the linkages and surprising interrelations between theory
and fiction, between the creative and critical. Whether affect theory, biopower or
some other useful thought, it is immensely productive to allow space for theory to
emerge paradoxically, perversely, strangely in fiction. And, in turn, to allow
fiction to speak back to theory, both compensating for its inadequacies and
interrogating its propositions.
Fifth, remain closely engaged with witnessed reality yet unafraid to move
beyond it. Writing about torture, it is easy to be afraid of veering from verified
factuality. But fictions power resides in its capacity to speak beyond the
incontestably real. If fiction is to somehow interrogate or bear witness to American
torture, it must negotiate between its own fictiveness and the reality of the war on
terror.
This ethic of writing grounded in biopower and affect has potential for
engaging the messy complexities of torture and its aftermath. If the war on terror is
constituted by its own linguistic violence, if the bodies made subject to American
power are never wholly sacrificed, if by refusing to pierce the flesh American
torture seeks to rupture and reconstitute narrative, then it is incumbent on those
who would write tortures remnants that they embrace an ethic of writing
whether that proposed here or some other that is conscious of its own messy lack
of finality, its own potential for becoming something new, changed, unexpected.
__________________________________________________________________
Notes
1
G. Agamben, State of Exception, trans. K. Attell, University of Chicago Press,
Cjicago, 2005, p. 38.
2
M. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collge de France,
1977-78, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007.
3
G. Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Stanford University
Press, Stanford, 1998, p. 5.
4
Ibid., p. 171. There is a fine line between using the Holocaust, on the one hand, as
a paradigm for every political horror and, on the other, making it so singular that
we cannot talk about it as anything other than itself.
5
D. Gregory, The Black Flag: Guantanamo Bay and the Space of Exception,
Geography Annual, Vol. 88, No. B, 2006.
6
G. Deleuze, Ethology: Spinoza and Us, Incorporations, Zone, New York, 1992,
p. 626.
7
E. Kosofsky Sedgwick and A. Frank, Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins
Reader, Duke University Press, Durham, 1995, p. 57.
8
Whether pain is an affect or not is open to significant debate. I would note here
the liberated reading of affect and emotion in the work of Sara Ahmed. Her work
on the contingency of pain is reference below.
9
J. Amry, At the Minds Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and
Its Realities, trans. S. Rosenfeld and S.P. Rosenfeld, Indiana University Press,
Bloomington, IN, 1980, p. 33.
10
E. Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World / Elaine
Scarry, Oxford University Press, New York, 1985, p. 27.
11
S. Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, Routledge, New York, 2004, pp.
28-29.
12
J.M. Arrigo and S.E. Brewer, Places that Medical Ethics cant Find: Preliminary
Observations on why Health Professionals Fail to Stop Torture in Overseas
Counterterrorism Operations, Interrogations, Forced Feedings and the Role of
Health Professionals: New Perspectives on International Human Rights,
Humanitarian Law and Ethics, R. Goodman and M.J. Roseman (eds), Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2009, p. 6.
13
I am most grateful to Jean Maria Arrigo of the Project for Ethics and Art in
Testimony for allowing me to view her privately-held correspondence, unpublished
and thus confidential, with an anonymous military intelligence liaison officer.
Additional copies of selected documents are held by the Hoover Intelligence
Archive and Bancroft Library.
14
Sedgwick and Frank, Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins Reader, p. 180.
15
Amry, At the Minds Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and
Its Realities, p. 34.
__________________________________________________________________
16
S. Felman and D. Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature,
Psychoanalysis and History, Routledge, New York, 1992, p. 199.
17
G. Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Harcourt Brace, New York, 1949.
18
Felman and Laub, op. cit., p. 199.
19
To mention a few such memoirs: M. Kurnaz, Five Years of my Life: An Innocent
Man in Guantanamo, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2008; D. Hicks,
Guantanamo: My Journey, William Heinemann, North Sydney, N.S.W., 2010; M.
Begg, Enemy Combatant: A British Muslims Journey to Guantanamo and Back,
Pocket Books, London, 2008.
20
M. Danner, US Torture: Voices from the Black Sites, http://www.nybooks.
com/articles/22530.
21
J. Flindt Perdersen, Your Neighbours Son, Greece, Ebbe Preisler Film/TV aps.,
1982; E. Morris, Standard Operating Procedure, Participant Productions, 2008.
22
G. Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive, trans. D.
Heller-Roazen, Zone Books, New York, 2002, p. 164.
23
A. Koestler, Arrival and Departure, Penguin, Harmondsworth, UK 1969, pp. 62-
67.
Bibliography
Agamben, G., Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Trans. Heller-Roazen,
D., Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1998.
, Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive. Trans. Heller-Roazen,

D., Zone Books, New York, 2002.
, State of Exception. Trans. Attell, K., University of Chicago Press, Chicago,

2005.
Ahmed, S., The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Routledge, New York, 2004.
Amry, J., At the Minds Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and

Its Realities. Trans. Rosenfeld, S. and Rosenfeld, S.P., Indiana University Press,
Bloomington, 1980.
Arrigo, J.M. and Brewer, S.E., Places that Medical Ethics cant Find: Preliminary
Observations on Why Health Professionals Fail to Stop Torture in Overseas
Counterterrorism Operations. Interrogations, Forced Feedings and the Role of
Health Professionals: New Perspectives on International Human Rights,
Humanitarian Law and Ethics. Goodman, R. and Roseman, M.J. (eds), Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2009.
__________________________________________________________________
Begg, M., Enemy Combatant: A British Muslims Journey to Guantanamo and

Back. Pocket Books, London, 2008.
Danner, M., Us Torture: Voices from the Black Sites. 9 April 2009. Accessed 17
March, 2010, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22530.
Deleuze, G., Ethology: Spinoza and Us. Incorporations. Zone, New York, 1992.

Foucault, M., Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collge De France,

1977-78. Senellart, M., Ewald, F. and Fontana, A. (eds), Palgrave Macmillan, New
York, 2007.
Gregory, D., The Black Flag: Guantanamo Bay and the Space of Exception.
Geography Annual. Vol. 88, No. B, 2006, pp. 405-428.
Hicks, D., Guantanamo: My Journey. William Heinemann, North Sydney, N.S.W.,

2010.
Koestler, A., Arrival and Departure. Penguin, Harmondsworth, UK, 1969.
Kurnaz, M., Five Years of My Life : An Innocent Man in Guantanamo. Palgrave

Macmillan, New York, 2008.
Morris, E., Standard Operating Procedure. 116 Minutes: Participant Productions,

2008.
Orwell, G., Nineteen Eighty-Four. Harcourt Brace, New York, 1949.
Perdersen, J.F., Your Neighbours Son. Ebbe Preisler Film/TV, Greece, 1982.
Scarry, E., The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. O xford
University Press, New York, 1985.
Sedgwick Kosofsky, E. and Frank, A., Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins
Reader. Duke University Press, Durham, 1995.
__________________________________________________________________
Michael Richardson is completing a Doctorate of Creative Arts at the University

of Western Sydney. His research into narrative, bodies and torture during the war
on terror is comprised of both a novel and an academic thesis. He received an MSc
(International Relations) from the London School of Economics and a BA (Hons)
from the University of New South Wales. Most recently, he was a speechwriter in
Canadian politics.
Because Memory is also a Prison: The Holocaust and the
Question of Representing Trauma in the Memoirs of Ruth Elias
and Ruth Klger
Anabela Valente Simes

Abstract
Holocaust representations performed by male survivors such as Primo Levi or Elie
Wiesel became the norm in the aftermath of WWII. Nonetheless, and despite the
unquestionable canonical value, their narratives are not unique icons of the marking
and traumatic experiences of that particular past. In actual fact, this historical
moment became representation object for many female authors who, after
overcoming a long latency period in which it was not yet possible to face trauma
and work it through, finally found the strength to break the silence and tried to
come to terms with the past through the process of writing. In this essay I intend to
examine two distinctive autobiographical accounts written by women. On the one
hand, Ruth Elias - who as a young Jewish from Czechoslovakia was taken to
Auschwitz while several months pregnant - depicts with painful detail the
experience of survival in the Nazi camps in her internationally acclaimed memoir
Die Hoffnung erhielt mich am Leben. On the other hand, Austrian Jewish survivor
Ruth Klger accomplishes the following tasks in her praised novel weiter leben: the
narration of her traumatic, haunted memories of the past and, simultaneously, an
acute reflection upon past and contemporary complex issues. Herein Klger
assumes a p rovocative, sarcastic and defying attitude by examining sensitive
matters such as disrupted parental relationships during the Jewish persecution,
current complex relationships between Jews and Germans and even some Jewish
patriarchal conventions which, according to the authors perspective, seem to deny
women their right to hold traumatic memories.
Key Words: Holocaust, identity, memory, trauma, female writing.

*****
The traumatic experience of the Holocaust has long been represented mostly by
male authors. In actual fact their experiences and memories became the norm
and, therefore, womens experiences, some of which are inevitably different, have
been relegated to a lower priority in contrast to the mainstream. 1 In reality and
despite the fact that both men and women indeed recall the same violent and
unique scenario, there are some specificities that need to be taken into account and
which, naturally, are not present in the narratives of canonical authors such as, for
example, Jean Amry, Elie Wiesel, Imre Kertsz or Primo Levi who, in his high
acclaimed autobiographical account If this is a man, actually acknowledges he does
not know what might have happened to women. 2 Though controversial, the thesis
of the distinctiveness of womens perspective is supported, among others, by one
156 Because Memory is also a Prison
__________________________________________________________________
of the most important exponents of the Holocaust Studies, the historian Raul
Hilberg, who considered that the road to annihilation was marked by events that
affected men as man and women as woman. 3
Female writing unveiled, on the one hand, the double discrimination women
suffered from - they were Jews, victims of a totalitarian and racist regime and,
simultaneously, they were women in a patriarchal and misogynous society. On the
other hand, these narratives include material about experiences that are unique to
women, such as the vulnerability to rape, pregnancy and childbirth, amenorrhea
and its psychological effects, experiences of nakedness and loss of femininity.
Their accounts frequently also focus on womens socialisation strategies
(friendship, bonding and mutual support within the group in opposition to the lone
wolf behaviour of men) as a means to live through their ordeal.
Particularly from the late 1980s onwards, a tendency to represent the past from
a female perspective has finally emerged. The fact that only later in life some
women have voiced their experience may be related to the fact that many survivors
have endured their traumatic memories with muted pain, thus postponing a
necessary work of mourning. Silence did not mean that the trauma was overcome
though; it meant more likely that past experiences were so overwhelming that it
was not (yet) possible to confront them, to give voice to decades of haunting
memories and thoughts, that is, to work them through. The number of
autobiographic accounts that record those past experiences - frequently dedicated
to the grandchildren and often regretting how the second generation was kept out
of these memories - demonstrates that the shield of silence had been finally broken.
From various accounts about the Holocaust experience, I chose to present here
two narratives which address the Shoah in a different fashion and distinctive level
of complexity: Die Hoffnung erhielt mich am Leben and weiter leben, written by
Ruth Elias and Ruth Klger, respectively.
Ruth Elias was a young Jewish woman from Ostrava, Czechoslovakia, when
she was sent to Theresienstadt and then to Auschwitz. 4 In her book Die Hoffnung
erhielt mich am Leben - translated into English in 1998 under the title Triumph of
Hope - Elias narrates her childhood memories, the horrors she has endured in the
Nazi camps, the aftermath of imprisonment and the difficult adjustment to normal
5
life in Israel. Elias recalls how she survived a tremendously traumatic experience
and how she survived the survival itself, for example, how she coped with the
remaining wounds, with the trauma, throughout the years. It took Elias more than
four decades to write down her memories, which commence as follows:
Time is passing quickly for me these days. I tend to look ahead,

for the years have taught me not to look back. But from time to
time I do and then the immediate and pervasive sensation I
have is of the concentration camp. It haunts me and has left deep
scars. I cannot rid myself of it, even though I have tried all my
Anabela Valente Simes 157
__________________________________________________________________
life to push it aside. It keeps coming back, so I am condemned to
live with it. I cant describe the sensation to anyone who has not
gone through this kind of hell; after all, nobody can comprehend
the incomprehensible. 6
Elias autobiography should be read as a representative document of Holocaust

testimony. Its language is direct and simple. The tone is clear, exact, with no great
aesthetical and literary ambitions. It rather aims at reporting with detail and
denunciating the facts, leaving philosophical reflections or metaphoric and
symbolic constructions aside. Herein the reader finds numerous descriptions of the
difficult day-to-day life such as, for example, inhuman and humiliating situations
or the unhygienic conditions of the camps. 7 Specific female perspective is
particularly depicted in this account. Elias describes the violence of womens
medical examinations (whose real objective was to find out if inmates had hidden
valuables in her bodies), experiences of nakedness, prostitution and rape, forced
abortions and also medical experiments with newborns. 8 In fact Ruth Elias was
pregnant when she was put in a cattle-wagon and sent to Auschwitz. Eventually
she gave birth with the help of a Polish mid-wife, without water or towels. Elias
was then chosen to participate in an experiment conducted by the physician Josef
Mengele, and in the end she lost her baby. 9 In the camp she met Kurt Elias, who
would become her husband. After the war she returned to Prague in an attempt to
find members of her family; upon finding that none of her immediate relatives had
survived, she became seriously depressed and was institutionalised. Aware of the
darkening political situation in Czechoslovakia under the Soviets, and the
continuing anti-Semitism, Ruth and Kurt Elias decided to emigrate to Israel and
restart their lives there.
Jewish author Ruth Klger was born in Vienna in 1931. After liberation she
emigrated to the United States, where she became a Professor of German Literature
at the University of California. Klger decided to write her memories in Germany
when, in 1988, she was involved in an accident. This incident, which in her
subconscious made her feel again victim of German aggression, led to a
confrontation with the trauma left by the concentration camp experience, the loss
of family members and the process of surviving her own traumatic memories.
Weiter leben - to live on - was published in 1992. The book was received with
acclaim in the German literary world, won prestigious literary prizes and was
recognised as one of the most important works on the subject. Due to its great
success the book was translated and published in several different countries.
Nonetheless an English translation was not available. And this was an expressed
wish of the author herself, who admitted in an interview that she indeed planned an
English version, but not before the death of her mother, who was not pleased with
her own description in weiter leben. 10
__________________________________________________________________
The narrative commences with a poignant statement: Their secret was death,
not sex. This short line reveals eight-year-old Klgers interest in overhearing the
adults conversations about forbidden topics such as torture, pain and death.
Satirically Klger replaces ones notion of inappropriate subjects for children -
sex- with the new, circumstantially more important one: death. This opening is
particularly significant because Klger establishes the tone for the rest of the text:
unconventional, provocative and irreverent approach. Klgers attitude to her past
is indeed different from other accounts: whereas other survivors - Elias, for
example -choose to recall the details of their experience, she looks at larger issues
behind the concentration camps and the post-war period.
In weiter leben Klger wrote down her Auschwitz memories, her thoughts,
fears, feelings of guilt and also her rage, in German and for Germans as she
unequivocally declares in her book. weiter leben also challenges the notion that
the Nazi legacy concerns only the German mainstream. Klgers work illustrates
that Jews too need to come to terms with their past, with the Holocaust, with
Germany, and with the Germans. 11 On the whole, weiter leben intends, on the one
hand, to challenge Germans to assume responsibility for their past and, on the other
hand, it speaks to Jews, who are advised to follow in the authors footsteps in
reflecting on, mourning, and integrating the difficulties of their traumatic past.
Klgers reflections are often revealing of a sense of displacement. Despite
being born in Vienna, there seems to be no identification with her Austrian
nationality. According to Klgers point of view, Vienna represents segregation
and her first prison, from which she did not manage to escape. 12 In opposition to
Vienna, Theresienstadt is described with a more positive tone; this is the place she
somehow loved, that changed the meditative and repressed person she was in
Vienna and made her a s ocial being. 13 In the end she considers the German
language her only home. 14 She is also particularly critical of a set of principles
imposed by patriarchal societies. Ironically she declares that her book is meant for
women, as men only read books written by other men. 15 She also sarcastically
criticises the attitude of her ex-husband who didnt want her to narrate her wartime
memories because these would compete with his own. This was also the moment
she understood that every war seems to belong to men, as well as wartime
memories seem too. 16 Religion, which she first learned in Theresienstadt, also
contributed to this critical point of view. 17 Even though Klger assumes that
religion is indeed part of her identity, she refuses to accept a set of principles and
stories she does not believe in and that keep women out of a series of rituals.
Therefore she assumes herself as a b ad Jew who soon acknowledged the
restrictions of what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal Jewish world. 18
In her book Ruth Klger refers to her mother as someone possessive,
authoritarian and presumptuous. Their unconstructive, damaging relationship,
which she named mother-daughter-neurosis, has influenced Klger in such a
negative way that, according to her view, her ability to be a ( good) mother had
__________________________________________________________________
been undoubtedly affected. 19 And this is exactly the reason why it took a d ecade
for the English version to see the light of day. As her mother was badly hurt by
some passages, it would only be after her death, in 2000, that the revised English
version would be published under the title Still Alive. 20 As Klger explains, it is
neither a translation nor a new book: its another version, a parallel book, if you
will for my children and my American students ... I have written this book twice. 21
This text preserves some characteristics of the first account but it introduces, as
well, important changes and updates acknowledged in the meantime, such as the
circumstances of her fathers death, who in the end did not perish in a gas chamber
in Auschwitz just like she had always imagined, but was sent in a transport to
Latvia and Estonia. 22 It maintains its original structure, but it also excludes a
considerable number of passages and chapters. The Epilogue is considerably
different. It does not begin with the description of her accident in 1988 but, in its
place, she describes what she does best, which is running away and with the
inherent danger of running in circles, 23 meaning this, not being able to escape
from her personal story, from her ghosts: the memory of her late father and
brother. Here she recognises that her memory is also a prison, from which she
never managed to escape throughout her entire life.
Another clear difference is the option for not using fictional names, which
contributes to the more personal, honest and forgiving tone of Still Alive. Her
German intellectual friend Christoph, for example, is identified as the famous
German writer Martin Walser. 24 Of most importance is also the circumstance that
while weiter leben was addressed to Germans and dedicated to her Gttingen
friends, the addressees of Still Alive are her American students and in its initial
dedication a h omage is paid to her mother. This immediately unfolds the
conciliatory tone we find in this new version where she seems to recognise that her
mothers feelings of guilt towards the death of her brother indeed moulded their
relationship. She also forgives - but does not forget - certain facts of the past, like
for instance, not having been allowed to flee to Palestine and thus avoid
deportation. 25
In the end, Klger talks about her four-year old granddaughter and the feeling
of triumph because her mother eventually had a human death, because she had
survived and outlived the evil times and had died in her own good time, almost a
hundred years after she [great-granddaughter] was born. 26 She closes her (second)
memories with a peaceful, bright picture of her mother and granddaughter seizing
joyful moments. It seems that a message of reconciliation and acceptance has been
sent and that it is finally possible to close the circle ... or maybe not, as this second
account proved that along with the present, the past is continuously evolving,
proving that memories cannot be fixed in space and time but live on. 27
The fact both authors needed a long time to revisit their past and compose a
narrative about their experiences might be related to the fact that in the aftermath
of the war survivors try to normalise their lives by repressing the horrors they have
__________________________________________________________________
endured and witnessed. This pseudo-normality seems to be effective, in the sense
that the survivors first priority is to take care of their own physical recovery: as it
can jeopardise their own physical reconstruction, survivors just know they can
neither mourn nor feel loss. Despite the seeming normality, the truth is that the
psychological self-reconstruction is continuously delayed and, as a co nsequence,
responses to the extreme circumstances of the past tend to arise, commonly in the
form of repetitive and uncontrollable hallucinations or other phenomena that go
beyond normal standards of behaviour. Instead of developing more constructive
responses to their feelings, these individuals act out, i.e. they discharge conflicted
mental content by means of action. In other words, these subjects have a tendency
to relive the past, to exist in the present as if they were still fully in the past, with
no distance from it. They tend to relive occurrences . . . for example, in flashbacks,
or in nightmares, or in words that are compulsively repeated. 28 For instance,
people who were deported in cattle-wagons recurrently feel claustrophobic every
time they enter an elevator or a confined area, or they can also feel disturbed when
any other images of the present somehow relate to the traumatic memories of the
past. In weiter leben Ruth Klger states that five decades after the war she still
feels anxious every time she sees a wagon transporting goods and Ruth Elias
recounts how she kept on returning to the source of trauma by repetitively
dreaming that she was still sitting in the cattle-wagon and that her family and
friends were being gassed. 29 Particularly symptomatic is also the description of the
birth of Elias second son already in Israel, which demonstrates the depth of the
trauma left by the death of her first child in Auschwitz: when the nurse takes the
baby from the delivery room, she gets disoriented, starts crying and desperately
says that her child should not be taken and murdered. 30
In opposition to this tendency to compulsively repeat past situations, the
process of working through is another form of dealing with trauma. It can be
understood as the act of creating a separation between past traumatic experiences
and the present, in other words, the person tries to gain critical distance on a
problem, to be able to distinguish past, present and future. 31 On the whole, it
requires the ability to accept the present independently, to some extent, of the past
experiences, and reinvest in life, meaning this, to invest in new objects and allow
the mourning process to be carried on.
This understanding of trauma may also be considered in the writing of
memoirs. In fact, the two processes of acting out and working through seem to
be combined in the act of capturing the trauma in memoirs, towards their final
goal, which is dealing with grief and psychic pain. This means that, as the survivor
writes about the experiences, this subject acts out and brings the memory into the
present, while at the same time working through and using the writing to help both
acknowledge and disengage from the past. As a result, the writing of memoirs
serves as a tool for managing and accepting past traumatic events, which validates
the assumption that all sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a
__________________________________________________________________
story about them. 32 By placing experiences into an organised layout of words and
chapters, survivors find or construct a sense of meaning for the traumatic events
they were subjected to, the past is exorcised and a s ense of catharsis may be
eventually attained.
Notes
1
S. Friedlnder, Testimony, Narrative, and Nightmare: The Experiences of Jewish
Women in the Holocaust, 1995, Viewed on 06.09.2010, http://www.theverylong
view.com/WATH/essays/golden.htm.
2
P. Levi, Se isto um homem, Lisboa, Editorial Teorema, 1988, p. 18.
3
R. Hilberg, Die Vernichtung der europischen Juden: Die Gesamtgeschichte des
Holocaust, Berlin, Olle & Wolter, 1982, p. 126.
4
Ruth Elias was born on October 6, 1922. She died in 2008.
5
Die Hoffnung erhielt mich am Leben was first published in 1988.
6
R. Elias, Triumph of Hope, New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1998, p. ix.
7
Ibid., p. 88
8
Ibid., pp. 161-162; pp. 147-148.
9
Ibid., pp. 184-185
10
C. Karich, Eine starke Frau, Sybille, 1993, pp. 4-93, here 54.
11
D. Lorrenz, Memory and Criticism: Ruth Klugers weiter leben, University Press
of America, Lanham, MD, 1993, pp. 207-224, here 208.
12
R. Klger, weiter leben: Eine Jugend, Mnchen, dtv, 1999, p. 19.
13
Klger, weiter leben, p. 103.
14
I. Heidelberg-Leonard, Ruth Klger. Weiter leben. Eine Jugend, Mnchen,
Oldenbourg, 1996, p. 57.
15
Klger, weiter leben, p. 82.
16
Ibid., p. 236; 12.
17
Ibid., p. 101.
18
Ibid., p. 44.
19
Ibid., p. 56.
20
R. Klger, Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered. Feminist Press, New
York: 2001, p. 210.
21
Ibid., p. 210.
22
Ibid., p. 40.
23
Ibid., p. 205.
24
Ibid., pp. 164-165.
25
Ibid., p. 57.
26
Ibid., p. 211.
27
C. Schaumann, From weiter leben (1992) to Still Alive (2001): Ruth
Klugers Cultural Translation of Her German Book for an American Audience,
The German Quarterly, Vol. 77, No. 3, 2004, pp. 324-339, here p. 328.
__________________________________________________________________
28
D. LaCapra, An Interview with Professor Dominick LaCapra: Acting-out and
Working-through Trauma, Cornell University, Shoah Resource Center, 1998, pp.
2-3.
29
Klger, weiter leben, p. 108. Elias, Die Hoffnung erhielt mich am Leben, p. 254.
30
Elias, Die Hoffnung erhielt mich am Leben, pp. 328-329.
31
LaCapra, An Interview with Professor Dominick LaCapra, p. 2.
32
I. Dinesen, Making Stories, Making Selves, Columbus, Ohio, Ohio State
University Press, 1993, p. 17.
Bibliography
Elias, R., Die Hoffnung erhielt mich am Leben. Piper Verlag, Mnchen, 2000.
Goldenberg, M., Testimony, Narrative, and Nightmare: The Experiences of Jewish

Women in the Holocaust. 1995, Viewed on 06. 09.2010, http://www.theverylong
view.com/WATH/essays/golden.htm.
Hilberg, R., Die Vernichtung der europischen Juden. Die Gesamtgeschichte des
Holocaust. Olle & Wolter, Berlin, 1982.
Heidelberger-Leonard, I., Ruth Klger. Weiter leben. Eine Jugend. Oldenbourg,

Mnchen, 1996.
Klger, R., weiter leben. Eine Jugend. dtv, Mnchen, 1999.
, Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered. Feminist Press, New York,

2001.
LaCapra, D., An Interview with Professor Dominick LaCapra: Acting-out and

Working-through Trauma. Cornell University, Shoah Resource Center, 1998.
Levi, P., Se isto um homem. Editorial Teorema, Lisboa, 1988.
Linden, R.R., Making Stories, Making Selves. Ohio State University Press,
Columbus, Ohio, 1993.
Lorenz, D., Memory and Criticism: Ruth Klugers weiter leben. University Press of
America, Lanham, MD, 1993.
__________________________________________________________________
Schaumann, C., From weiter leben (1992) to Still Alive (2001): Ruth Klugers
Cultural Translation of Her German Book for an American Audience. The
German Quarterly. Vol. 77, No. 3, 2004, pp. 324-339.
Anabela Valente Simes is Professor at the University of Aveiro, Portugal. Her

current research interests include: identity and memory studies, trauma studies,
representations of the Holocaust, the transgenerational effects of the National-
Socialism.
Collective Trauma in Modern Afrikaans Fiction
Cilliers van den Berg

Abstract
The pre-1994 cultural and socio-political history of South Africa has been widely
described as a collective trauma. Not only its long colonial history, but especially
twentieth century apartheid is till to day seen as a socio-political trauma which is
often schematically represented in terms of clearly identifiable victims and
perpetrators, that is in terms of race. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee, set
up in 1995 with Archbishop Desmond Tutu as chairman, has been instrumental in
setting the tone for the cultural discourse on this trauma. Since the first democratic
elections in 1994, literature written in Afrikaans has been in the difficult position
of confronting this traumatic past. The most difficult aspect for the Afrikaans
writer was, and still is, the moral implications of writing from the position of the
perpetrator, at least this would be the set role allocated to him within the South
African literary scene. The aim of this chapter is to investigate how this collective
trauma has been, and still is, represented in modern Afrikaans literature, especially
in recent times. It becomes especially interesting because the position of the
Afrikaner within modern South African society often is seen as marginalised,
which in effect again produces a traumatic effect: the loss of power, the loss of
identity and the loss of land. The question to be answered is whether the notion of
collective trauma includes some kind of a s ocio-political dynamic which either
consciously, or even sub-consciously, can be used in various ways by various
groupings within societies marked by historical trauma. Can the loss of Afrikaner
identity therefore be perceived as traumatic and in which relation does this
question stand with regards to the collective trauma of Apartheid? These questions
will be discussed with reference to a few relevant Afrikaans literary texts.
Key Words: Trauma, collective trauma, trauma narratives, trauma and literature.
*****
1. Introduction
Many of the social, cultural and political narratives about post-Apartheid South
African society have been influenced by a collective trauma narrative, originally
established during the proceedings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in
the 1990s. The focus of my chapter is on the social dynamics of this trauma
narrative, in contradistinction to the collective trauma it sets out to represent. It is
important to note that there is a difference between trauma and its representation,
especially when it is about a traumatic historical incident experienced individually
by each victim, but subsequently amalgamated and simplified into one collective
narrative. 1 Collective narratives by their very nature are stratified within society
166 Collective Trauma in Modern Afrikaans Fiction
__________________________________________________________________
and make an impact on various societal levels, not all of which link up directly
with the mediation of a primal experience of the original trauma.
Although these narratives are not necessarily manipulated by socio-political
agents to gain ideological capital, my contention is that collective trauma narratives
do have an enormous impact. It does not follow that these narratives are inherently
bad, only that they often have detrimental effects, which in a worst-case scenario
symptomatically act out the original trauma they merely wanted to represent (or
come to terms with) in the first place. 2
The obvious ways in which these narratives are contra-productive would be
their use of stereotyping and oversimplification. Stereotyping not only refers to the
designation of victims, perpetrators, guilt and atonement within the narrative
context, but also to the evaluation of the narrative itself as being necessarily
therapeutic and achieving closure. 3 I would not want to criticise the legacy of the
TRC, but simply state that the way in which their work was publicly mediated
made a subsequent presentation of a monolithic trauma narrative possible.
2. Afrikaans Literature
The question that follows is what the collective South African trauma narrative
means (meant?) for the contemporary Afrikaans literary field in particular. In
contemplating the past, the Afrikaans writer finds himself / herself in a similar
position as the German writer in the wake of the Second World War: s/he
necessarily writes from the position of perpetrator, notwithstanding the fact that
this set role within the collective trauma narrative would in reality probably be
much more nuanced. In order to ascertain the effects, it would be necessary not
only to analyse the relevant Afrikaans literary texts in order to find common
thematic trends, but also to take note of the critical academic discourse within the
literary field.
2.1 Literature as Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

In 1997 H.P. Van Coller published an article in the journal of the Afrikaans
Literary Society called (in translation): The Truth Commission in Afrikaans
literature: Afrikaans prose of the nineties. In this article he emphasised the trend in
the then current fiction of an obsessional interest in and meddling with the past. 4
Interestingly enough the time-frame of the proceedings of the TRC roughly
coincided with the reaction of Afrikaans writers and academics to the work of the
historical narrativists, which had a h uge impact on the Afrikaans literary scene.
The gist of the article was that historical truth is and will always remain a chimera,
and that efforts to reconstruct this past will fall well short of truth, but might
through the construction of the past, present narratives which could give people a
voice and could effect change. In short, this was an identification of narrative as
first and foremost having a therapeutic quality: the narrative was reconciliatory, but
could not represent the whole truth.
Cilliers van den Berg 167
__________________________________________________________________
Having identified various fictional trends which dealt with the past Van Coller
suggests that it is the future which is of paramount importance and that the literary
narrative should be used as a vehicle to achieve Vergangenheitsbewltigung, by
breaking with the past. The shift of emphasis towards the therapeutic potential has
been more in favor of a reconciliatory effort.
Whereas Van Coller was very optimistic about the therapeutic potential of the
narrative, Philip John wrote an article in which he threw down the gauntlet:
Reconciliation, Aufarbeitung, Renaissance, Enlightenment: what does the South
African past demand from us? Johns argument was that one cannot come to terms
with the collective South African trauma by using narrative as a talisman and
neither should Afrikaans texts written with the Apartheid trauma as theme be
reductively interpreted in those terms. In retrospect, the point of the whole debate
was trying to find answers to questions regarding the reactions of the Afrikaans
literature to the collective trauma of the past. Writing from the position of
perpetrator, the question was whether any positive contribution could be made.
2.2 Deconstructing / Rewriting the Past

Using the narrative as talisman to deal with the traumatic past is foundational to
the narrative reconstruction of this selfsame past. 5 What happened with the
establishment of a co llective trauma narrative was that the narrative of Apartheid
ideology had to be and was deconstructed. This meant that everything kept in place
by the iekian master signifier, was upturned, including aspects like collective
identity, collective memory and collective history. The Afrikaans writer had to
rethink an identity founded on a now debunked collective memory, which had been
manipulated by an official history.
Mixing artistic experimentation with narrativistic explorations of history and
narrative, many writers tried to reimagine the South African past, either by
retelling the known or discovering unknown petites histoires. And although the
stories were told, they were very seldom exhibited as new truths: deconstructing
the old was not seen as a firm basis on which to erect new master narratives. 6
A very informative way to write about the reconsidered past was to use the old
as a lens for the new. The period of 1999-2002 represented the centenary
celebrations of the Anglo-Boer War. Many important novels having the war as
backdrop were published around this time, but were now looking at the past which
often was venerated in previous historical writing, from a much more critical
perspective. Not only were lesser-known stories of Afrikaner brutality told or the
traumatised Boer fighters pushed to the forefront of the events. Clear parallels were
also drawn between the most recent past and the events of the war, rather to the
detriment of the war history than to that of the Apartheid past. A much discussed
novel in academic writing, Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz by Christoffel
Coetzee is a case in point.
__________________________________________________________________
Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz is the meta-historiographical story of an
Afrikaner (Boer) general in the Anglo Boer War. Important themes in the novel are
again the questionability of historical truth, the power of the narrative and the
confluence of past and present in the figure of the main character, general Mentz.
Interpreted as an evil man who because of his deeds also becomes embodiment of
collective guilt, parallels have been drawn between the fictional character of
Mentz and Eugne de Kock, infamous apartheid assassin. 7 By interpreting the
novel in this way, a dark cloud is cast not only over the heroic past of the
Afrikaner, but also the more recent Apartheid past. If anything, the novel
represents a disruptive force to any lingering narratives of the previous disposition.
Author Christoffel Coetzee himself drew a d irect connection between the TRC
hearings and the fictional Mannetjies Mentz of his book.
2.3 Deconstruction of Afrikaner Identity

It does not represent a giant leap from reimagining the past to completely losing
grip on the notion of one collective history to having to rethink the collective
identity, which by many is considered to be a result of the various stories told
about the collective selves.
Much has been written about the lack of a s tructuring narrative or master
signifier in the discourse on Afrikaner identity. It seems as if the collective trauma
narrative, with its designated roles of perpetrator and victim, collective guilt, and
atonement, has to a large extent been unable to establish itself as a foundational
point of departure. This might be symptomatic of historical change and
transformation in general, unwillingness to let go of the past, or a r eal and
informed critical stance towards what is seen as an overly simplified narrative.
One of the ways in which specifically this problem of identity has manifested in
literary texts, has been the debunking of the father figure in some Afrikaans fiction
of the time. Traditional Afrikaner culture has been described as being very
patriarchal, not only in terms of its social structures, but also politically manifested
in the attitude towards the Other, the non-white. The latter was placed in the
position of subaltern, with the father figure symbol of invested power. 8 Although
criticising the stern father figure has certainly been emancipatory, it has also
included a sense of a beacon being lost.
Others have also focused on another aspect regarding the role of the patriarchy,
namely the loss of masculinity as described in the genre of hunting literature.
Visagies article is called Masculinity and the loss of power in the Afrikaans
hunting literature since 1994, and that of Beuke-Muir, The vulnerability of the
modern man and its manifestation in the prose of Piet van Rooyen, Van Rooyens
fiction is interpreted as symptomatic of a sense of emasculation with regards to the
Afrikaner man. But it should be noted that this sense of emasculation and loss of
patriarchal power should not only be seen against the background of loss of
political power and affirmative action, but also the role of globalisation and the
__________________________________________________________________
lingering effects of feminism. It further illustrates something of the dynamics of a
collective trauma narrative that, in its grip on society, can appropriate many diverse
social and cultural developments thereby taking on the allure of a new master
narrative.
2.4 Truth and Reconciliation as New Master Narrative

Probably the most famous literary text on t he proceedings of the TRC is
Country of My Skull, published by Afrikaans poet Antjie Krog. In the last chapter
she writes:
Against a flood crashing with the weight of a brutalising past on

to new usurping politics, the Commission has kept alive the idea
of a common humanity. Painstakingly it has chiselled a way
beyond racism and made space for all of our voices. 9
It seems to follow that the language of common humanity is also the road the
commission has chiselled for a South African narrative.
Many scientific objections could be made about the narrative presented by the
TRC. The very question as to the lingering impact of the primal traumatic
experience can also easily be glossed over by focusing only on truth and
reconciliation. 10 Probably the most dangerous supposition of the commission was
the conviction that a narrative of trauma necessarily equals healing. 11 It should be
noted that this does not mean that narrative has no therapeutic effects on
individuals and communities, but rather that the very notion of a necessary link
between the two should be revisited.
The fact of the matter is that quite a few years have passed since the TRC
narrative of truth and reconciliation was mediated to the world. Mediation by
necessity entails different contextualisations of the message, which over time start
to shape (or warp) the originally intended idea. When dealing with a co llective
trauma narrative it becomes even more complex, since so many role players
intentionally try to manipulate the narrative, apart from other contingent local,
national and international developments whose effects become appropriated by the
narrative. For this reason I stated earlier that one should not always suspect
ideological intentions in the ways narratives like these function. They remain part
of social developments which might be well beyond the control of a singular role
player. This fact might subsequently lead to its very dissolution, but the other side
of the coin is that such a narrative becomes extremely pliable in the grip it has on a
collective reality. The collective trauma narrative then becomes very dangerous in
its simplification not only of a traumatic past, but also in its simplification of the
present in terms of this past.
__________________________________________________________________
2.5 Criticising the Trauma Narrative
It begs the question, to what extent criticism from the ranks of the Afrikaans
literary field was levelled at the TRC proceedings, and the collective trauma
narrative it instigated. In 2003, John Miles published Die buiteveld (The Outfield),
the story of main character Smerski, whose real identity is uncovered as the novel
progresses. A South African soldier who fled the country and is now living under a
false name, he experiences strong feelings of guilt, but also realises that he will
never take part in a public spectacle of atonement. He goes as far as to say that
public confession to him is the worst kind of self-pity. Here the criticism seems to
centre round the idea of coming to terms with an individually experienced trauma
in a very public and collective way. The point of the criticism is not to question the
importance and worth of confession, atonement, and narrative, but rather the
collective appropriation of all of these.
But here already the problematic position of Miles becomes clear. Is the trauma
narrative to be criticised from within the parameters which form the perspective of
the Afrikaans writer? Would it not in effect suggest a shrugging off of guilt, and
does it not in all actuality emphasise the necessity of having the collective narrative
to at least guide those who have not yet converted to its idealistic aims to add their
voices to its message? What is in effect described here is the reductionist
consequences a collective trauma narrative might have. Designated roles and
functions within the narrative are set out and those not complying with it, do it to
their own detriment. It follows that even the intention of the criticisms becomes
irrelevant within the ambit of the collective narrative, since the narrative itself
obviously mediates only what upholds its own dynamics.
This leads to another issue which brings the whole relation between trauma and
its representation full circle: what are the symptoms of traumatic experiences?
Does it not include loss of (narrative or historical) identity and the suppressing of
the right and ability to identify and express the own role within society? Do not
collective trauma narratives sometimes stereotype to the extent that the trauma it
sets out to deal with is symptomatically acted out in its stead?
3. Conclusion
The impact of the South African collective trauma narrative on the Afrikaans
literary field is complex: the collective narrative itself evolves continuously, as do
the reactions that follow. Both literary texts and literary criticism have often
positioned themselves in relation to coming to terms with the past. The narrative
itself has forced Afrikaans writers to take stock of their history and identity, which
has led to many texts describing a symptomatic sense of loss. If trauma is loosely
defined as a loss of narrative, the logical conclusion would be that because of a
deconstruction of their identity and history, Afrikaners too suffer from a collective
trauma. Because of the difficult position of the Afrikaans writer within the context
of the collective trauma narrative, the moral credibility to criticise this narrative is
__________________________________________________________________
hampered: this further enhances the symptomatic sense of loss, thereby
contributing to a collective South African trauma. A serious question which
remains is to what extent trauma can be used as a blanket term in post-Apartheid
South Africa, and to what extent its narrative refers back to the traumatic past in
real terms.
Notes
1
A. Verdoolaege, Media Representations of the South African Truth and
Reconciliation Commission and Their Commitment to Reconciliation, Journal of
African Cultural Studies, Vol. 17(2), 2005, pp. 181-199.
2
D. LaCapra, History and Its Limits: Human, Animal, Violence, Cornell University
Press, Ithaca and London, 2009, p. 4.
3
LaCapra, p. 83.
4
H.P. Van Coller, Die waarheidskommissie in die Afrikaanse letterkunde: die
Afrikaanse prosa in die jare negentig, Stilet, Vol. 9(1), 1997, p. 11.
5
D. Edwards, The Lasting Legacy of Trauma: Understanding Obstacles to
Resolution following Traumatic Experiences, Memory, Narrative and
Forgiveness: Perspectives on the Unfinished Journeys of the Past, P. Gobodo-
Madikizela and C. van der Merwe (eds), Cambridge Scholars Publishing,
Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009, p. 46; C. van der Merwe, Literature as Truth and
Reconciliation Commission: Examples from Afrikaans Literature, Gobodo-
Madikizela and van der Merwe, p. 286.
6
H. Du Plooy, An Overview of Afrikaans Narrative Texts Published Between
1990 and 2000, Stilet, Vol. 13(2), 2001, p. 26.
7
L. Barnard, Die psigologiese identiteit van die bose: Lacan, aggressie en Op soek
na generaal Mannetjies Mentz, Literator, Vol. 24(2), 2003; M. Wenzel, The
Many Faces of History: Manly Pursuits and Op soek na generaal Mannetjies
Mentz at the Interface of Confrontation and Reconciliation, Literator, Vol. 23(3),
2002, pp. 17-32.
8
A. Visagie, Fathers, Sons and the Political in Contemporary Afrikaans Fiction,
Stilet, Vol. 13(2), 2001, pp. 140-157.
9
A. Krog, Country Of My Skull, Vintage, London, 1998, p. 422.
10
S. Graham, The Truth Commission and Post-Apartheid Literature in South
Africa, Research in African Literatures, Vol. 34(1), 2003, p. 14.
11
S.V. Gallagher, I Want to Say Forgive Me: South African Discourse and
Forgiveness, PMLA, Vol. 117(2), 2002, p. 304.
Bibliography
Barnard, L., Die psigologiese identiteit van die bose: Lacan, aggressie en Op soek
na generaal Mannetjies Mentz. Literator. Vol. 24(2), 2003, pp. 105-123.
__________________________________________________________________
Beuke-Muir, C., Die kwesbaarheid van die moderne man en die manifestasie
daarvan in die prosa van Piet van Rooyen. Stilet. Vol. 13(1), 2001, pp. 1-10.
Coetzee, C., Op soek na generaal Mannetjies Mentz. Queillerie, Cape Town, 1998.
Du Plooy, H., An Overview of Afrikaans Narrative Texts Published between 1990

and 2000. Stilet. Vol. 13(2), 2001, pp. 14-31.
Edwards, D., The Lasting Legacy of Trauma: Understanding Obstacles to

Resolution following Traumatic Experiences. Memory, Narrative and
Forgiveness: Perspectives on the Unfinished Journeys of the Past. Cambridge
Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009.
Gallagher, S. V., I Want to Say Forgive Me: South African Discourse and
Forgiveness. PMLA. Vol. 117(2), 2002, pp. 303-306.
Gobodo-Madikizela, P. and van der Merwe, C., Memory, Narrative and

Forgiveness: Perspectives on the Unfinished Journeys of the Past. Cambridge
Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009.
Graham, S., The Truth Commission and Post-Apartheid Literature in South

Africa. Research in African Literatures. Vol. 34(1), 2003, pp. 11-30.
John, P., Versoening, Aufarbeitung, Renaissance, Verligting: Wat eis die Suid-
Afrikaanse verlede van ons? Stilet. Vol. 12(2), 2000, pp. 43-62.
Krog, A., Country of My Skull. Vintage, London, 1998.
LaCapra, D., History and Its Limits: Human, Animal, Violence. Cornell University
Press, Ithaca and London, 2009.
Miles, J., Die buiteveld. Human & Rousseau, Cape Town, 2003.
Van Coller, H.P., Die waarheidskommissie in die Afrikaanse letterkunde: die

Afrikaanse prosa in die jare negentig. Stilet. Vol. 9(1), 1997, pp. 9-21.
Van der Merwe, C.N., Literature as Truth and Reconciliation Commission:

Examples from Afrikaans Literature. Memory, Narrative and Forgiveness:
Perspectives on the Unfinished Journeys of the Past. Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009.
__________________________________________________________________
Verdoolaege, A., Media Representations of the South African Truth and

Reconciliation Commission and Their Commitment to Reconciliation. Journal of
African Cultural Studies. Vol. 17(2), 2005, pp. 181-199.
Visagie, A., Manlikheid en magsverlies in die Afrikaanse jagliteratuur sedert

1994: Die olifantjagters van Piet van Rooyen en Groot vyf van Johann Botha.
Stilet. Vol. 12(2), 2000, pp. 29-41.
Visagie, A., Fathers, Sons and the Political in Contemporary Afrikaans Fiction.
Stilet. Vol. 13(2), 2001, pp. 140-157.
Wenzel, M., The Many Faces of History: Manly Pursuits and Op soek na
generaal Mannetjies Mentz at the Interface of Confrontation and Reconciliation.
Literator. Vol. 23(3), 2002, pp. 17-32.
Cilliers van den Berg is German lecturer at the University of the Free State in
Bloemfontein, South Africa. His current research focuses on collective trauma
narratives, primarily with regards to the socio-political impact literature might have
in this regard.
PART 3
Theorising Trauma in Practice

A Jungian Approach to Understanding and Treating Adopted
Children who were Traumatized Prior to Their Adoption
Mark Bortz
Abstract
All adopted children face a myriad of psychological and existential issues. This is
further impacted if the child experiences trauma prior to the adoption. The work of
two Jungian theoreticians offers a profound insight for understanding these
children. Erich Neumann explores how the emergence of ego and consciousness is
facilitated by the relationship with the primary parent. When the environment
obstructs or fails to facilitate the evolution of the ego an emergency ego arises that
allows the child to survive at the expense of growth and development. Donald
Kalsched has suggested that when faced with severe trauma, that the ego cannot
cope with, the self develops archetypal defences that allow the child to survive but
hinder further development. These survival strategies make these children
particularly difficult to engage with therapeutically. Their priority is to survive,
rather than heal or develop. They have a great deal of difficulty to verbalize or
even imagine their trauma. Jungs respect of the psyche as a self healing system
allows us a d ifferent approach in treating these children. Non verbal therapeutic
modalities allow the psyche of these children to engage in a therapeutic process.
Sand play therapy is particularly useful in working with these children. This is
demonstrated by a clinical vignette focusing on three sand worlds of a child who
had been traumatized prior to adoption.
Key Words: Adoption, emergency ego, Jung, Kalsched, Neumann, sand play, self
care system, psyche as self healing system, trauma.
*****
All adopted children face a myriad of psychological and existential issues. This
is further impacted if the child experiences trauma prior to the adoption. Children
who experience trauma, particularly during infancy, have issues that impact every
aspect of their development and their very being. Jungian ideas, particularly Erich
Neumanns concept of the emergency ego 1 and Donalds Kalscheds concept of
the archetypal self-care system 2 and possibly more importantly his understanding
of unimaginable trauma can profoundly help us to understand these children, and
develop an appreciation of how unimaginable their early trauma is for them. Along
with these concepts, Jungs profound respect of the psyche as a self healing system
may help us treat these children. The free and protected space of sand play therapy,
the sand as a representation of the archetypal Great Mother, and the fact that
images are the psyche's first language suggests that sand play therapy is an
178 A Jungian Approach to Understanding and Treating Adopted Children
__________________________________________________________________
extraordinary therapeutic technique that profoundly facilitates the psyche healing
itself.
1. Erich Neumanns Concept of the Emergency Ego

Erich Neumann (1905-1960) is widely recognized as Jungs most creative and
scholarly student. In his opus magnus, The Origins and History of Consciousness
(1954) he draws on a wide range of mythology to show how the development of
the individual's consciousness goes through the same archetypal stages as the
development of human consciousness as a whole. His last book The Child:
Structure and Dynamics of the Nascent Personality (1973) is a companion to his
earlier work, focusing on how these archetypal themes are played out
psychologically. Similar to Margaret Mahler, Neumann distinguishes between the
physical and psychological birth of the human infant. He writes The human child
must go through an extra-uterine as well as intra-uterine phase. 3 Or more
simply the nine months in the womb is not enough for psychological birth and the
human infant spends another stage in a womb-like experience with his or her
mother. During this phase the foundations of the childs relationship to its body,
unconsciousness, self, others and the world is established. Consciousness with the
ego as its centre arises from an experience of the unconscious self and the primary
relationship.
But what happens when the mother is persecutory or abandons the infant as in
the case of orphans who have no primary care and experience trauma prior to
adoption? Trauma that is unimaginable by the adopting parents, mental health
professionals and most importantly the child himself. Neumann differentiates two
possible consequences. The first option is apathy, an egoless state of decline. The
child gives up, or dissociates. The second option is the establishment of what has
become known as an emergency ego. Without the shelter of the primal relationship
a distressed negative ego emerges prematurely. Not being able to rely on the other
it awakens too soon and is driven prematurely to independence by the situation, of
hunger, anxiety, distress and a myriad of brutal factors the unprotected infant faces.
This is particularly so when the trauma is early in the childs life, and is chronically
sustained. Rather than feel helpless and unsafe the emergency ego is consumed
with aggression and rage. It is often provocative in a premature and inappropriate
manner. The emergency ego helps the child survive horrific hardships, but if it
remains after the trauma, it impacts almost every aspect of the childs behaviour. A
rigid emergency ego is associated with almost all psychopathology. The
emergency ego is primarily concerned with survival. In this situation there is very
little energy for relatedness to others, and often more devastating, to their own self.
There is very little energy for feeling, which is often perceived as a threat. These
perceptions were in the past not always incorrect. Unfortunately the emergency ego
does not always perceive change in the environment. Not allowing oneself to feel
or connect with others leaves the child in a state of acute suffering and loneliness.
Mark Bortz 179
__________________________________________________________________
The same survival, adaption strategies leaves them lacking the relational and
reflective abilities that are often essential in order to engage in a t herapeutic
process that could free them from the constraints of this no longer necessary
emergency ego.
2. Donald Kalscheds Concept of Archetypal Defences

Kalscheds work with adult patients who had undergone early trauma led him
to new conceptualizations. 4 Kalsched notes that every life form is centrally
preoccupied with protection and defence. Normally the ego is responsible for
defences. When trauma is too severe for the ego to contend with, or when the
trauma happens early on in life, and the ego is not fully formed, the psyche has
another line of defence. The self, as the centre of the psyche and the unconscious,
can too create defences. When the self feels its personal spirit is to be violated or
destroyed and that it cannot call on the ego, it creates an archetypal self care
system to protect the personal spirit from total annihilation.
The person pays a horrifically high price for these defences. Because the self,
often correctly, perceives itself and the personal spirit being threatened with total
non-being or utter annihilation it feels justified for using harsh or dark defences.
These defences often come from the dark side of the numinous. Often when the
trauma is one that the infant is born into, there are no positive human figures to
model these self-care figures on. Hence the self can only rely on a magical or
mythological level. Here the self finds demonic figures in the archetypal psyche.
Often they are personified as demons and are persecutory. This system says never
again will the traumatized personal spirit suffer so badly or face a cruel reality.
Before this will happen the self care system will do whatever is in its power to do:
if necessary disperse it into fragments or dissociate, drive it crazy, numb it with
intoxicating substances, and keep killing it to avoid hope. In short these defensive,
self preservation mechanisms can be associated with almost all of
psychopathology.
Kalsched goes as far as comparing the demonic self care system as an auto
immune disease (AIDS) attacking the very psyche it is defending. The self care
system mistakably perceives each new life event as a dangerous event. Because
danger is perceived as a threat of utter destruction, the new is ruthlessly attacked.
Often the initial trauma is no longer present but the self care system is unable or
unwilling to learn and hence remains tyrannical and destructive well after the
danger has passed.
3. A Partial Conclusion
There are some theoretical differences and use of different concepts by
Neumann and Kalsched. Nevertheless on a conceptual level and even more so in
terms of the clinical phenomena of traumatized patients, Neumann and Kalsched
are describing the same phenomena. Namely, when there is an early trauma, before
__________________________________________________________________
the ego evolves or becomes adequate, the psyche uses primitive archaic structures
to enable itself to survive. These configurations are extraordinarily effective in
allowing the psyche to survive in an environment where survival is not a given.
But because of the fear of utter annihilation these structures never let their guard
down. They are so intent on survival and protection that they do not allow for
growth and healing. How then can these children be helped? Here as therapists we
need to be present but very respectful that only the psyche can heal itself. This I
will show by a clinical case focusing on three sand trays of a young child.
4. Clinical Material: From Persecuting to Reclaiming the Soul

Yossi was six and a half when he came to therapy. He had been adopted by
loving devoted parents when he was a year old. He was adopted from an orphanage
in Eastern Europe where illness, hunger, neglect, and inconsistent care were part of
his daily reality. There was no known history, prior to him being placed in the
orphanage. The boy's parents felt their love and devotion would be enough. Signs
of pathology were underplayed or ignored until Yossi in his first year of school
had, in a fit of rage, punched a hole though a plain of glass, miraculously not
cutting himself.
Yossi felt safe enough in the first session to do a sand world, or rather a world
that he kept changing. (Figure 1)
The left side of the initial scene reflects the chaos that he has experienced.
Within the chaos are a vast number of witches, monsters and skeletons.
Unimaginable chaos and horror. But chaos and horror that his psyche not only
produces, but allows him to see and experience. Kalsched goes as far to say that
when the trauma is constellated as a whole it brings the various experiences
together not as re-experience but really the first experience of the trauma. 5 To the
lower right side of the sand tray a lone knight stands on a castle seeing the horror.
In a container of water, attended to by two cannibal skeletons there is a figure of a
princess in white. I considered that this was possibly a representation of Yossi's
soul. Not protected by the Great Mother, or the personal abandoning mother of his
early environment. It is not clear whether the two cannibal skeletons are there as
guards or potential consumers of his soul. Perhaps capturing the protecting as well
as devouring energy of the archaic self care system.
Mark Bortz 181
__________________________________________________________________
Figure 1
Yossi then removed the princess from the container and placed her on a
platform within the castle walls. (Figure 2)
Figure 2
I felt myself breathing a sigh of relief. Moving the princess to within the castle
walls was to put her in a s afe protected space. My relief did not last long. Yossi
__________________________________________________________________
then took a guillotine that was originally placed in the walls of the castle and
places the princess, head up, and ready to be beheaded. (Figure 3) With the third
location of the princess, under the blade of the guillotine, it was clear that there
was a p ersecutory structure, persecuting his very soul. His actions seemed to be
saying I would rather destroy my soul than let myself be annihilated.
Figure 3
A few weeks later he did a sand scene thematically similar to the first. (Figure
4)
Figure 4
Mark Bortz 183
__________________________________________________________________
This time the era of persecutory figures is both smaller and better organized.
There is a barrier of fences dividing it from the right side where military planes and
vehicles are placed. One aspect of the right side is that there are no human beings
in this area reflecting his difficulties connecting to others and the loneliness he was
then experiencing. Another aspect of this side is that there are massive and very
formidable defences: the fences, the powerful tanks and fighter planes. The lack of
human beings in this area is suggestive that these powerful defences are rigid and
without a guiding hand, unable to respond to changing circumstances.
Figure 5
The princess is placed in a blue egg shaped container within the chaotic left
side of the sand tray. (Figure 5) The location of the left side leaves her vulnerable,
but by placing her within the blue egg, he is creating a protective shell around it to
insulate her from the threatening world around her. I felt he was evolving from the
previous representation of beheading her in the service of his survival, to a concept
of insulating or freezing her within a hostile environment. It was as if he was
saying: My soul does not have to be murdered for me to survive, though it still
needs to be frozen or encased for me to survive. In lieu of later development, the
choice of an egg shaped container may prelude to a later rebirth of the soul.
About two years into the therapy another remarkable series of sand trays was
presented. The first scene, done in wet sand, shows a co nstruction site.
Responding to how Yossi now represents in the outer world. (Figure 6)
__________________________________________________________________
Figure 6
When an area of the sand was excavated by him there are ten skulls. (Figure7)
It was as if he was saying no matter how peacefully I behave I have undergone
horrific annihilating events and they will always be part of who I am. Yet like all
symbols, the skull, as a symbol, is pregnant with meaning, containing positive and
negative sides to it. The skull symbolizes death. Yet the skull is also everlasting.
But this was not the end. Yossi then brought a number of precious stones and
buried them in the sand. With infinite care and patience he began to evacuate them
one by one and slowly transport them to the diametrically opposite corner to the
skulls. (Figure 8) I feel these are parts of his personal spirit or soul that have been
fragmented and dispersed in deep layers of the psyche. Here they are retrieved,
reclaimed, and placed together for both of us to see. The juxtaposition of the skulls
with the precious stones affirms his journey to heal his traumatic origins. The self-
regulated journey to uncover his traumatic experiences integrated both the
skeletons of his past with the psychic treasures that accompany this new
development. The therapeutic vessel could contain, within the same world, both
representations of his trauma and manifestations of new energies.
Mark Bortz 185
__________________________________________________________________
Figure 7
Figure 8
5. Conclusion
Patients who have been traumatized are a p articularly difficult challenge to
psychotherapists. This is not only because of the traumatic material that needs to be
dealt with. The experience of trauma leads to defensive structures and behaviour
that impact every aspect of the patient's being. Not only are these defences
strategies associated with a wide range of psychopathology, but they make the
patient resistant to their emotions, self reflection and being in relation - the
cornerstones of a therapeutic process.
__________________________________________________________________
Both Neumann and Kalsched's theoretical models help clinicians make sense
of, and have a respectful attitude to, these structures that helped the patient survive.
Nevertheless patients come to therapy to heal and develop. Jung's profound
understanding of the psyche as a self regulatory healing mechanism is useful in the
face of these patients' resistance to change. Nevertheless for a p rocess of
transformation and the emergence of new energies to take place, a s afe vessel
needs to be available. The free and protected space of sand play therapy is a
profound vessel. The figures call for creating images and often the trauma is seen
and experienced in a s afe and protected environment. The process allows the
psyche to begin healing. New sand worlds are slowly created, each transforming
the initial trauma into manageable experiences. The healing vessel of the sand tray
and the therapeutic milieu provide the safety which often allows the psyche to
discover and manifest new energies. Energies that allow for development and make
life worthwhile.
Notes
1
E. Neumann, The Child: Structure and Dynamics of the Nascent Personality,
Shambhala, Boston, 1973.
2
D. Kalsched, The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defences of the Personal
Spirit, Routledge, London, 1996 and D. Kalsched, Archetypal Affect, Anxiety and
Defence in Patients Who Have Suffered Early Trauma, Post-Jungians Today: Key
Papers in Contemporary Analytical Psychology, A. Casement (ed), Routledge,
London, 1998, pp. 83-102.
3
M.S. Mahler, F. Pine and A. Bergman, The Psychological Birth of the Human
Infant, Basic Books, New York, 1975, p. 7.
4
D. Kalsched, The Inner World of Trauma, 1996, and D. Kalsched, Archetypal
Affect, Anxiety and Defence in Patients Who Have Suffered Early Trauma, pp.
83-102.
5
Ibid., p. 95.
Bibliography
Kalsched, D., The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal
Spirit. Routledge, London, 1996.
Kalsched, D., Archetypal Affect, Anxiety and Defense in Patients Who Have
Suffered Early Trauma. Post-Jungians Today: Key Papers in Contemporary
Analytical Psychology. Casement, A. (ed), Routledge, London, 1998.
Mahler, M.S., Pine, F. and Bergman, A., The Psychological Birth of the Human
Infant. Basic Books, New York, 1975.
Mark Bortz 187
__________________________________________________________________
Neumann, E., The Origins and History of Consciousness. Princeton University

Press, Princeton, NJ, 1954.
Neumann, E., The Child: Structure and Dynamics of the Nascent Personality.
Shambhala, Boston, 1973.
Mark Bortz, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and Jungian psychotherapist in

private practice in Kfar Saba, Israel. Correspondence: Hameyasdim 41/8, Kfar
Saba, 44371, Israel. Email: bortz@inter.net.il
Trauma to the Body Politic: Impacts and Adjustments Following
Political Assassination
William W. Bostock
Abstract
The ancient metaphor of the body politic, that is, the isomorphism of individual
body and whole of society, is taken as a starting point. It is extended to cover the
mental state and mental functioning of the collectivity or mind politic, and the
provenance of the concept through Durkheim (conscience collective), Freud (the
unconscious), Jung (collective unconscious), Erikson (identity) and Antonovsky
(sense of coherence) is presented. Particular attention is given to psychic wounding
and Ranks concept of trauma, and the process of healing. Here the relevance at the
collective level of Kbler-Rosss stages of grief is seen. Among the many sources
of trauma one stands out as particularly shocking and impactful, and that is
political assassination. There is no standard pathology of assassination, and each
must be examined sui generis for impact, adjustment and possibility of healing.
Some diverse but historically significant political assassinations are considered
with a view to making some general statements about the healing process.
Key Words: Assassination, body politic, collective mental state, collective trauma,
identity, mind politic, sense of coherence.
*****
1. The Concept of the Body Politic

The metaphor of human society as a body is found in Sanskrit writings,
continuing through Ancient Greece, the Middle Ages, to the present day. The body
politic can suffer physical trauma from many sources such as war, conquest,
famine and natural disaster. Physical trauma also impacts at the mental level, and
some communities have severe difficulty in adjusting, such as a loss of sense of
community. 1
2. The Collective Consciousness or Mind Politic

In the Nineteenth Century, various writers hypothesised a collective mind.
If it is accepted that there is a body politic, it logically follows that there will be
a mind politic. Such a co ncept does in fact have a l ong history as collective
consciousness, which, like individual consciousness, is under the influence of a
collective unconscious. Predating Freud by more than two decades, the theorist Le
Bon (1841-1931) observed that unconscious phenomena dominated in the
functioning of the mind of the psychological crowd. This is also shared collectively
as many common characteristics passed from generation to generation as collective
memory, which could be retrieved or unretrieved. While suggestibility can be a
190 Trauma to the Body Politic
__________________________________________________________________
characteristic of an individual, it is more acute in a cr owd, which will be
perpetually hovering on the borderland of the unconscious. 2
Freud (1856-1939) adopted Le Bons formulation of group mind functioning,
which he accepted as operating through mental processes just as it does in the mind
of an individual. Freud also accepted the importance of a repressed unconscious.
When he speculated on the group mind, he saw it as led by the unconscious. The
group mind demands leadership because of the attraction of the group for the
individual arising from the fear of being alone so that the herd instinct is something
primary and indivisible. As a herd instinct or group or community feeling
develops, this group will make as its first demand the demand for identification of
one with another but also recognising a single person as superior to all, that is, the
leader. 3
Another psychoanalyst, Jung (1875-1961), believed that the personal
unconscious, as proposed by Freud, was underlain by a d eeper level of the
collective unconscious. The collective unconscious provides a second psychic
stream, as a system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is
identical in all individuals. The unconscious has three levels: that which can be
produced voluntarily, that which can be produced involuntarily, and that which can
never be produced. The unconscious stores repressed material, which compensates
or counterbalances the conscious, and can create symbols. The collective
unconscious also shapes Weltanschauung or world-view. 4
Freud and Jung noted that just as an individual mind can suffer trauma, so
could a collective mind suffer collective trauma. The effects of trauma were central
in the writings of the early psychoanalysts and developed by Rank, who explored
the concept more fully. 5 Rank saw the analysts role as helping the subject to
belatedly accomplish the uncompleted mastery of the trauma of birth, in other
words, to overcome trauma by processing it to produce a new sense of identity.
The very same process can occur at the collective level.
Erikson saw a strong sense of identity as a necessary condition for both a
successfully functioning individual and for a society and discussed at length the
dysfunctional states of confusion, crisis and panic of identity. A strong sense of
identity is a generator of energy and a weak or confused sense of identity as a
source of decline. As a crisis of identity develops, powerful negative identity
factors are produced. 6
It is important to note that identity is not a single entity, but rather a work in
progress. Castells observed that as identity is constructed, three categories can be
recognized: (1) legitimizing identity, in which the dominant aspects of society are
recreated (2) resistance identity, in which marginalized groups develop an identity
and (3) project identity, in which new identities are created and which can in turn
influence a dominant identity. 7
William W. Bostock 191
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Identity can thus be seen as part of a collective mental state that is a necessary
condition for survival, but one that can become severely disordered by the severe
trauma that can be caused by the assassination of a leader.
The performance of the individual or community in the task of surviving will
involve an interaction between many activities and the mental state. This requires
the maintaining of a sense of coherence 8 which is vital to the task of survival, that
is, coherent social functioning. The difficulty of obtaining and maintaining the
sense of coherence can be made much harder when a state is badly corrupted. The
concepts of identity and sense of coherence can merge together as a coherent sense
of identity at a collective level, which can be severely disrupted by the trauma of
the assassination of a leader.
3. The Impacts of Assassination

In regard to the collective consciousness and unconscious or mind politic, it is
significant that the theorists of the unconscious gave enormous importance to the
role of the leader whose role is one of articulating societys deeper feelings and
through working with these raw materials, shape and give direction to a society.
Therefore, when a leader is suddenly and unexpectedly removed, there is likely to
be major trauma. Where this removal has occurred by accident or illness, the
trauma could be significant, but where it has been by the actions of an assassin, the
trauma is likely to be of even greater magnitude. As a result of being left
leaderless, a society will likely be bereft of motivation, directionless, given to
irrationality, and paralysed with fear. The impacts of assassination will be manifold
and far-reaching: political, social, economic, organisational, military, and above all
psychological, in the form of a catastrophic and generalised loss of confidence.
Identity can thus be seen as part of a collective mental state that is a necessary
condition for survival, but one that can become severely disordered by deep and
systemic corruption, through a d istorted sense of coherence, and resultant
identification by self and others as part of a corrupt or broken state.
4. Stages of Processing the Trauma of Assassination

The impact of a political assassination upon an individual or group or whole
state can severely distort the sense of coherence of identity that is vital to survival,
as it is with any other loss. Here it is possible to use the well-known stages of grief
of Kbler-Ross as a template. Kbler-Ross recognized grief as a process involving
five stages in the journey from initial shock to successful adjustment and survival.
The stages are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. 9 This schema
can be expanded and adapted to cover the psychological stages of adjustment by a
society after the assassination of its leader:
__________________________________________________________________
1. Denial or disbelief
2. Anger and violent reprisal against perpetrators, or alleged
perpetrators
3. Bargaining, which may involve an act of atonement by the
group or associates of the perpetrator(s)
4. Depression, or a generalized state of despondency and gloom,
resulting in widespread demotivation and apathy
5. Acceptance and apathy. After the depression has exhausted
itself, it gives way to the widespread feeling that nothing can
be done to restore the pre-assassination status quo
6. Humiliation, or an awareness that among the community of
nations the reputation of ones collectivity has been severely
damaged
7. Rebirth, the sense that a new order will be born, where the
problems and difficulties of pre-assassination times of a
regime can be left behind. The rebirth may include
posttraumatic growth, 10 which is a positive psychological
change that could have come about as a result of the
challenge of surviving within a damaged system.
5. Three Case Studies of Political Assassination

5.1 Olof Palme (1927-1986)
Olof Palme was a Socialist-Democratic politician who served as Prime Minster
of Sweden from 1969 t o 1976 and 1982 to 1986. While Prime Minister, Palme
carried out the constitutional reforms of making the Rijsdag a unicameral
parliament and reducing the power of the monarchy. Internationally he supported
the Third World countries and opposed the Vietnam War and the Soviet invasion
of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and worked to end Apartheid in South Africa.
On February 28, 1986, while walking home from the cinema with his wife, and
without security guards, Palme was fatally shot and his wife wounded by an
assassin. After a lengthy and somewhat botched investigation, including such
suspects as the Kurdish Workers Party and the South African secret police, a
suspect, Christer Pettersson, an unaffiliated and unemployed worker, was put on
trial and convicted but the conviction was later overturned. In 2011 the allegation
was made that the assassination was carried out by killer in the pay of the then
Yugoslav Secret Service. 11
The impact of Palmes assassination was immediate and enormous, but in the
political dimension over a longer period, not as great as might have been
expected. 12 The impact at the psychological level was much greater, as stated by
Hausen
__________________________________________________________________
The event was and has been seen as a symbolic turning point in
modern Swedish history, and a tragic transition in the view of
Sweden as a b enign quasi-utopian place to a more cynical view
of Sweden as a p lace no longer insulated from the dangers
previously associated with other parts of the world in the
Swedish mindset. 13
It seems therefore that Swedish society has experienced difficulty in processing

the trauma of the Palme assassination to the level of acceptance. The fact that no
clear responsibility has been allocated a p art of this process is significant. At the
psychological level, Sweden has had to endure the humiliation not only of violence
but the revelation of imperfections of security, police detection and judicial process
leading to a redefinition of identity.
5.2 Juvenal Habyarimana (1937-1994)

Juvenal Habyarimana was President of the Republic of Rwanda from 1973 until
his death in 1994 when his presidential jet was shot down by a surface-to-air
missile on final approach to Kigali International Airport. All on board were killed
in the crash, including Cyprien Ntaryamina, President of Burundi, the Chief of
Staff of the Rwandan military, and others including the two pilots who were
French nationals. The immediate aftermath of the assassination was genocide along
ethnic lines of 800,000 to one million people in a period of 100 days.
While a colony of Germany and then Belgium, the colonial powers had
traditionally favoured an ethnic minority group, the Tutsis, over the Hutu majority,
though towards the end of their rule, the Belgians began to favour the Hutus, and a
situation of intense ethnic rivalry had been allowed to develop. A short time before
the assassination of the President, who was a member of the Hutu group, it was
stated that
the government had adopted a new policy, according to which

everyone in the countrys Hutu majority group was called upon
to murder everyone in the Tutsi minority. The government, and
an astounding number of its subjects, imaging that by
exterminating the Tutsi people they would make the world a
better place, and the mass killing had followed. 14
A full explanation of the tragedy is yet to be given, but certainly the actions and
inactions of the worlds powers, international agencies and the media, share
responsibility.
Rwanda has had difficulty in processing the trauma triggered by the
assassination, a process subverted by the lack of certainty of the identity of those
responsible for the shooting down of the presidential jet. Rwanda had been in civil
__________________________________________________________________
war since 1990 between the mostly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and the
mostly Hutu government, whose troops were backed by France, but a cea se-fire
had been negotiated in 1993. Fearing reprisal after the genocide, some two million
Hutus fled the country, and the RPF was able to take power, later confirmed in
elections.
While an official French enquiry laid responsibility for the assassination with
the RPF, there are also claims that Habyarimanas own troops were responsible,
resenting his moves towards peace. 15 This uncertainty over responsibility could be
seen as a factor causing difficulty in reaching the stage of rebirth.
5.3 Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1945)

Prior to entering the national politics of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin had had a
distinguished military and diplomatic career. When in politics he rose through the
Left to be Minister of Labour and then Prime Minister from 1974 to 1977 and 1992
to 1995. During this time, his work for peace led to the creation of the Palestinian
National Authority and culminated in the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords and
his receiving of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
On November 4, 1995, Rabin was fatally shot by Yigal Amir, a twenty-five
year old right-wing Jewish law student, while speaking at an evening peace rally.
There were considerable weaknesses of security at the rally, despite many prior
threats of violence. A week before the assassination, Rabin was reported in a
French magazine interview to have said; I dont believe a Jew would kill a Jew. 16
Despite the immediate capture and confession of the assassin, and subsequent
conviction to life imprisonment, many conspiracy theories quickly developed and
remain, including one that Shin Bet, the Israeli Security Agency, was responsible.
A subsequent official enquiry, the Shamgar Commission, found that Shin Bet had
ignored warnings that Jewish extremists were planning an attempt on Rabins life
and were aware of Yigal Amirs threats but had failed to act. 17
The immediate impact of the assassination on Israel was highly traumatic; as
one commentator noted (t)he event shocked Israeli society to its core and had a
sobering effect on left and right, doves and hawks, secular and religious alike. 18
It also had worldwide effect, with Rabins funeral attended by many world
leaders, but despite an overwhelming wave of sympathy, Rabins successor as
Labours Acting Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, lost the May 1996 election to the
Likud Party candidate, Binyamin Netanyahu, causing one analyst to comment that
the assassination had had
less of a lasting impact on the publics political values, beliefs

and attitudes than might have been anticipated from the
magnitude of the event and intensity of the immediate
response. 19
__________________________________________________________________
In the longer term, the assassination appears to have had the effect of delaying
the peace process in the Middle East, but in Israeli society, which was born out of a
history of grieving over trauma from before Masada, through pogroms, to the
Holocaust, one more loss could be seen as temporary in psychological impact,
fading with the passage of time. 20
6. Conclusion
Of all the traumas that can beset a body politic, political assassination is one
that is likely to be particularly deep and severe. This is because the response of
political leaders to the need of the mind politic for a coherent identity at conscious
and unconscious levels can be severely disrupted. Although each body politic will
respond to the crisis of assassination in its own way, there is a common healing
process. However, though a body politic may have to some extent successfully
adjusted, the mind politic may become fixated at one or more stages of the process
so that adjustment may be limited. As mind and body are in a contingent relation,
there is likely to be a longer-term affect at the unconscious level.
Notes
1
K.T. Erikson, Loss of Communality at Buffalo Creek, American Journal of
Psychiatry, Vol. 133, March 1976, pp. 302-305.
2
G. Le Bon, The Mind of the Crowd, Viking, New York, 1960 (First published
1895), p. 22.
3
S. Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Group Psychology and Other Works,
Standard Edition, XVIII, (1920-1922), Hogarth, London, 1955, pp. 75-118.
4
C.G. Jung, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, (17 Volumes), Vol. 9. Routledge
& Kegan Paul, London, 1959, pp. 43-287.
5
O. Rank, The Trauma of Birth, Harper Row, New York, Evanston, San Fransisco,
London, 1973 (First published 1929).
6
E.H. Erikson, Identity, Psychosocial, Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences,
Macmillan and Free Press, New York, pp. 61-65.
7
M. Castells, The Power of Identity, Oxford, Blackwell, 1997, p. 8.
8
A. Antonovsky, Health Stress and Coping, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, London,
1980.
9
E. Kbler-Ross, On Death and Dying, Macmillan, New York, 1969.
10
R.G. Tedeschi and L. Calhoun, Post-Traumatic Growth: A New Perspective on
Psychotraumatology, Psychiatric Times, April 1, 2004.
11
The Australian (newspaper), Yugoslav Spy Killed Palme, says Germany,
January 19, 2011, p. 9.
12
P. Esaiasson and D. Granberg, Attitudes Towards a Fallen Leader: Evaluations
of Olof Palme before and after Assassination, British Journal of Political Science,
Vol. 26, July 1996, pp. 429-439.
__________________________________________________________________
13
D. Hansen, The Crisis Management of the Murder of Olof Palme: A Cognitive-
Institutional Analysis, Swedish National Defence College, Stockholm, 2003, p. 79.
14
P. Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We will be Killed with
Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, Picador, London, 1998, p. 6.
15
The East African, (newspaper), Habyarimana Killed by His own Army UK
Experts, January 10, 2011.
16
L. Laucella, Assassination, the Politics of Murder. Lowell House, Los Angeles,
Contemporary Books, Chicago, 1998, p. 421.
17
Ibid., p. 433.
18
Y.Y.I. Vertzberger, The Antimonies of Collective Political Trauma: A Pre-
Theory, Political Psychology, Vol. 18, December 1997, p. 863.
19
Ibid., p. 864.
20
A. Raviv, A. Sadeh, A. Raviv, O. Silberstein and O. Diver, Young Israelis
Reactions to National Trauma: The Rabin Assassination and Terror Attacks,
Political Psychology, Vol. 21, June 2000, p. 318.
Bibliography
Antonovsky, A., Health Stress and Coping. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, London,
1980.
The Australian (newspaper), Yugoslav Spy Killed Palme, Says Germany. January
19, 2011.
Castells, M., The Power of Identity. Oxford, Blackwell, 1997.
Erikson, E.H., Identity, Psychosocial. Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Sills,

D.R. (ed), Macmillan and Free Press, New York, 1968.
Erikson, K.T., Loss of Communality at Buffalo Creek. American Journal of

Psychiatry. Vol. 133, March 1976, pp. 302-305.
Esaiasson, P. and Granberg, D., Attitudes towards a Fallen Leader: Evaluations of

Olof Palme before and after Assassination. British Journal of Political Science.
Vol. 26, July 1996, pp. 429-439.
Freud, S., Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Group Psychology and Other Works.
Standard Edition, XVIII, (1920-1922). Hogarth, London, 1955, pp. 75-118.
Gourevitch, P., We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We will be Killed with Our
Families: Stories from Rwanda. Picador, London, 1998.
__________________________________________________________________
Hansen, D., The Crisis Management of the Murder of Olof Palme: A Cognitive-
Institutional Analysis. Swedish National Defence College, Stockholm, 2003.
Jung, C.G., The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 9. Routledge & Kegan Paul,
London, 1959.
Kbler-Ross, E., On Death and Dying. Macmillan, New York, 1969.
Laucella, L., Assassination, the Politics of Murder. Lowell House, Los Angeles
and Contemporary Books, Chicago, 1998.
Le Bon, G., The Mind of the Crowd. Viking, New York, 1960 (First published
1895).
Rank, O., The Trauma of Birth. Harper Row, New York, Evanston, San Francisco,
London, 1973, (First published 1929).
Raviv, A., Sadeh, A, Raviv, A., Silberstein O. and Diver, O., Young Israelis
Reactions to National Trauma: The Rabin Assassination and Terror Attacks.
Political Psychology. Vol. 21, June 2000, pp. 299-322.
Vertzberger, Y.Y.I., The Antimonies of Collective Political Trauma: A Pre-

Theory. Political Psychology. Vol. 18, December 1997, pp. 863-876.
William W. Bostock is Senior Lecturer in Government, University of Tasmania.

His special interests include Political Psychology.
Criticizing Collective Trauma: A Plea for a Fundamental Social
Psychological Reflection of Traumatization Processes
Markus Brunner
Abstract
Since 9/11 at the latest, the idea that entire collectives or societies can be
traumatized by shattering historical events has witnessed a significant upsurge.
Theoretical concepts of collective or societal trauma are surprisingly scarce
though. Notable exceptions are Volkans mass psychological concept of chosen
trauma and Alexanders rather sociological notion of cultural trauma. But while
Alexanders focus on the social construction of trauma narratives is blind to the
real suffering of people and its possible societal consequences, Volkan takes
human suffering as a starting point but falls prey to the analyzed communities
own invention of tradition (Hobsbawm/Ranger). His blindness towards the
constructive character of collective traumas is problematic because the trauma-
related concept of victimhood is used by many collectives in order to legitimate
political claims or mask their own perpetratorship. In my chapter I want to follow
up the question of how it is possible to speak about human suffering after wars,
genocides and persecutions while at the same time countering the pervasive
ideological trauma and victimhood discourses. With Hans Keilson, Ernst Simmel
and psychoanalytic trauma theory I argue that all traumatization processes must be
understood in societal context. The psychosocial reality before, during, and after
the traumatizing event always shapes the trauma.
Key Words: Collective trauma, cultural trauma, war neurosis, trauma theory,
psychoanalysis, social psychology, political psychology.
*****
In recent years, not only the term trauma has witnessed a significant upsurge,
but also the idea that entire collectives or societies can be traumatized by shattering
historical events. Since 9/11 at the latest, everyone is talking about collective
traumas when it comes to describe the aftermath of incidents or states of violence.
One hereby looks at the impacts of very different events and historical
constellations like the civil wars in Rwanda or in former Yugoslavia, the Holocaust
with regard to the Israeli or the post-national socialist countries, the apartheid in
South Africa and the bombing of the German cities in the Second World War. But
even political or media events like the assassination of John F. Kennedy are said to
unsettle a nation or a minority in it in a traumatic way.
It is said that the nations, societies, or groups concerned have been wounded by
these events and that they can only cope by using defence mechanisms specific to
trauma coping. They try to suppress the event and collective experience and to
200 Criticizing Collective Trauma
__________________________________________________________________
rigidly exclude it from social discourses. The numbness of general responsiveness
is contrasted by a s tate of increased attention and arousal when something
associated with the traumatic events is brought up. And when the dissociated
memories are evoked nevertheless, the pent-up aggressions caused by the traumatic
incident are released against the groups or persons now identified as perpetrators.
In this discourse, public media and historical, sociological, and social
psychological explanations are often entangled and amplify one another.
But before I come to the theoretical questions this discourse raises, I want to
point out a political problem. The discourse of trauma is quite immediately linked
to the inflation of another discourse: the victim discourse. David Becker speaks of
an emerging ideology of victimhood, 1 an international competition of nations and
groups to achieve the status of a victim. This status is very much coveted, because
it brings some advantages: First, it distracts from ones own wrongdoings. Second
it allows the nations and groups to claim compensation from the supposed
perpetrators. And third, the status of a victim can, if not legitimize, at least
ostensibly explain and somehow validate acts of revenge as taking place in
response to ones own suffering, for at any rate it blames the attacked perpetrator
too. Thus, the discourse about collective traumas gains a problematic ideological
dimension.
Naturally it cannot be denied, but on the contrary it is important to underline,
that events of violence like wars, genocides, persecution, and banishment leave
tremendous scars for the - sometimes massive amounts of - people who sustained
them. I think that all the mentioned events like civil wars, the Second World War,
certainly the Holocaust, but also events like 9/11 leave incisions in a lot of the
individuals concerned that we should call traumatic in a c linical sense. The term
trauma has a cr itical potential for establishing and denominating a co nnection
between societal violence and individual suffering. So actually, the mentioned
events force us to use the term in this critical sense. And of course theses traumas
of sometimes masses of people shape the societies and groups that are affected by
the violence.
So this is my problem: How can we talk about the suffering of individuals,
about its causes and about the societal effects of this suffering without falling into
the trap of the described ideology of victimhood?
Against this background I want to examine the term and the few existing
concepts of collective, cultural, or societal trauma. As you see, the question of
what the notion of collective trauma precisely means is not only a scientific but
also a moral or political question. Therefore the answer has to be found in the
tension between these layers.
1. Existing Concepts of the Notion Collective Trauma

Considering the described boom of the idea of collective trauma it is surprising
that only a few efforts have been made to theoretically conceptualize it. Possibly
Markus Brunner 201
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best known is the concept of chosen trauma by Vamik Volkan. 2 Another one
often brought up is the more sociological concept of cultural trauma by Jeffrey C.
Alexander. 3
For reasons of limited space, I can only state here that both concepts simplify
the analyzed phenomena and their complex interrelations of psychological and
social processes by singling out one dimension only.
For Alexander, cultural trauma is a socially mediated attribution, 4 which
was proposed by social agents and has achieved acceptance in a public discourse. It
doesnt really matter if and in which form a traumatic event actually happened,
what matters is the peoples belief that an event has damaged the bonds attaching
people together. Thus, Alexander focuses on t he social construction of trauma
narratives. Against this background it is very surprising that Alexander nonetheless
mentions that a t rauma sometimes is not collectively recognized, despite [its]
objective status and the pain and suffering it had caused. 5 The real suffering of
the people seems to trouble the scientific neutral and merely sociological focus,
but Alexander does not try to reflect on the connection between traumatic event,
traumatized humans, and trauma discourse.
Volkan on the other hand takes human suffering as a starting point. People
suffer a traumatic event and are not able to mourn the loss, so they pass the task of
mourning and reparation on to the next generations. The representation of this
trauma can gain a massive importance for the large-group identity and when it is
reactivated by anxiety-inducing circumstances, a so called time-collapse occurs:
the fears, fantasies, and defences associated with the chosen trauma reappear and
the traumatic event that occurred sometime centuries ago will be felt as if it
happened yesterday. 6 The new enemy in a conflict will be perceived as it was the
ancient enemy and people feel entitled to regain what was lost and to seek revenge
for it. But in focusing only on the real suffering and intergenerational trauma-
transmission-processes, Volkan falls into the trap of the analysed communities
own invention of tradition. 7 Therefore, he legitimizes the ideology of large
groups as a reaction to massive suffering.
Both concepts do not ask about the relationship between the individual
traumatic experience and the collective processing at all. Therefore I suggest
social-psychologically reflecting the term of trauma itself. We need a concept of
trauma that can handle the complex relationships between the traumatizing event,
the psychosocial framing, the subjective experience, and the later processing within
a social context. Deterministic concepts of trauma or mere lists of symptoms like
the PTSD definitively cant offer this.
2. Social-Psychological Reflections on Traumatization Processes

I will not present such a co ncept but rather have a look into the history of
psychoanalytic trauma theory. The psychoanalytic debates on trauma are a b ig
field, firstly because of the permanent debates between conflict - and drive - on the
__________________________________________________________________
one hand and other trauma-theoretical perspectives on the other hand. Since
Freuds rejection of his early seduction theory and his discovery of unconscious
fantasies the constant question about the relationship between inner and external
reality has emerged and is constantly hard-fought. Then secondly, the notion of
trauma includes very different subjects like the impacts of the imprisonment in
concentration camps, train accidents, infantile sexual abuses, and structurally
stressed parent-child relationships.
Instead of going into these debates, I just want to highlight some insights and
approaches I regard as vital for a social-psychological approach to traumatization
processes.
The first author I want to address is Ernst Simmel. As a young army doctor in
the First World War he treated hundreds of German soldiers who suffered from
war neurosis, i.e. shock traumas in short therapies. After the war and again in 1944
he reflected on his experiences and called attention to the specific context of the
particular group relationships in the army. 8 Simmel argued that the group
psychological structure where what Freud 9 called the ego-ideal is externalized to
the protecting leader of the company and the comradeship has a n arcissistic
stabilizing function in this structure the soldiers gain a feeling of security and
even an immunity against fear of death. 10 Thus, in this group psychological
situation the soldiers are basically protected against a trauma. In contrast, the war
neuroses are an effect of a disintegration of the mass psychological bonds when the
soldiers feel humiliated or disappointed by their superiors. When the soldier feels
abandoned by the protecting parent imago the realistic anxiety comes up and is
amplified by feelings of guilt because of the aggressive feelings towards the
superior. When there is no chance to removal by flight or attack these aggressions
are turned against the soldier himself. Simmel argues that because of the
systematic destabilization of the individual ego in the army the soldiers are even
more vulnerable to trauma than civilians if the group coherence falls apart. Thus
even the shock trauma in a war is not the direct effect of experiences of violence
but is embedded in a psychosocial context and therefore linked to the bindings of
the individual to other persons.
In their report on London children during the Second World War, Dorothy
Burlingham and Anna Freud document similar experiences of immunization
effects against traumas by attachments to protecting persons. The Blitzkrieg bombs
hardly scared the children as long as they felt sheltered by their parents. Only when
they were separated from their parents or when the parents got anxious themselves
the war experiences had traumatic impacts on the children. 11
Simmel not only highlights the stabilizing effects of personal group bonds, but
also explains that one of the stabilizing key factors was a shared ideology, which
secured the psychological structure even when personal attachments loosened. An
ideology can prevent a p sychic breakdown and therefore, he argues, soldiers of a
Markus Brunner 203
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totalitarian state, where civilians already have a shared ideology, are more immune
to trauma than others.
Thus, Simmel shows that we have to look at potentially stabilizing or
weakening mass psychological processes before and during a possibly traumatic
event.
And as if that were not enough, Simmels therapy is also noteworthy: he
encouraged the traumatized soldiers to fight against a l ife-sized puppet which he
identified as an incarnated enemy. As the soldier transformed his fear into anger
and aggression and imaginarily regained the groups recognition again by killing
an enemy the traumatic symptoms disappeared. The removal of aggression against
an imagined enemy and the reintegration into the groups collective narcissism had
stabilizing and curative impacts. Thus, there are mass psychological mechanisms
or rather ideological proposals that can cushion or compensate for traumatizations
again. Freud called this curing effect of mass psychology Schiefheilung, in English
this translates as crooked cure.
So, in his remarks on trauma Simmel shows the importance of analyzing the
specific context, above all the scope of action and the mass psychological and
ideological integration potentials, which are both always entangled with power
structures.
The next theorist I want to mention briefly is Alfred Lorenzer. 12 In comparing
different traumatic situations he discovered that the patterns of these situations
structure the later symptoms. Especially longer-lasting traumatic situations produce
specific levels of regression and corresponding structures of symptoms. Lorenzer
discovered a concise congruence of the exterior situation of the event, the
enforced position of the ego and the according symptomatology due to the
[reactivated psychosexual] phase. 13
So, Lorenzer shows as well that the reference to a trauma alone doesnt say a
lot about the impacts of the traumatic situation. There are differences between
different scopes and restrictions of actions that cause different symptoms.
It was Hans Keilson who revealed that the analysis of the traumatizing overall
situation has to be even more expanded. In the 1970s he studied Jewish people who
as children had survived the persecution by the Nazis but had lost their parents. 14
Keilson differentiated three stages that should be examined separately: The first
one is the phase of the beginning of the terror against the Jewish families. The
second one is the phase of the direct persecution when the children were separated
from their parents and had to endure years in hiding places or in concentration
camps while their parents had been killed. The third stage is the post-war period,
the growing up in different milieus, in foster families, or orphanages. Keilson made
the remarkable discovery that the third phase determined the perspective of healing
more than the severity of the previous phases. The possibility of an integrating
processing was more important for the development of symptoms than the extreme
traumatizing situation during the Third Reich.
__________________________________________________________________
Referring to Keilson, David Becker developed an advanced concept of
sequential traumatization with some more stages that also includes the prehistory.
This concept should be used as a f rame of reference for a cl ose analysis of
traumatizing processes caused by political conflicts. Becker points out that an
after-the-trauma doesnt exist but only a continuing traumatic process that
proceeds in a healing or destructive sense after the end of a war, direct violence or
persecution. 15
The traumatic process always develops in the mode of afterwardness, a
Freudian notion that can prevent us from a t oo simple deterministic concept of
trauma. Afterwardness is not a simple deferred action as it is often translated into
English but it designates a complex dialectic temporality of determination which is
continuously revised and retroactively constructed. And as we have seen, these
processes of afterwardness always have to be seen in relation to societal
circumstances and discourses.
Thus, in an analysis of traumatization processes we always have to take a closer
look at all the stages, the psychic and psychosocial prehistory, the stress situation,
and the later chances, limits, and ways of processing. The reference to a traumatic
situation hardly says anything about the long-term handling of it. Trauma is a
process that doesnt have a static form but is constantly altering and developing.
We always have to consider the social, psychosocial, and ideological or discursive
context before, during, and after the trauma, which is essential for the chances to
empower and enable the traumatized, and to help them integrate the traumatic
event.
3. Conclusions
1) Due to the inflation of trauma discourses and associated victim discourses I
plea for a car eful use of the term trauma. If everything is traumatic the notion of
trauma becomes meaningless. We should reserve it for cases of massive violence
and fear of death. And I think my look into the history of trauma theory has shown
that even in cases of what is called extreme traumatization we have to consider the
whole historical context. Not only out of political or moral but also out of clinical
reasons: in many ways, the external reality is always inscribed in the trauma
process.
2) I recommend letting go of terms like collective, national or cultural trauma.
They obscure more than they are able to enlighten. Either they are used just
metaphorically in the sense of a disruption of communication structures or a
narcissistic humiliation of a large group. Here the recourse to trauma theory is
unnecessary but rather confusing. Or the terms are really used to describe the
societal impacts of mass traumatizations. Then they are insufficiently complex
because, in a clinical sense, only individuals can be traumatized.
Instead of these terms I suggest using three different terms: Firstly collective
processing of mass individual traumatizations for the cases I mainly discussed in
Markus Brunner 205
__________________________________________________________________
this chapter. The second is trauma narration or trauma discourse, which can
either be just invented or correspond to a real trauma of several group members. In
the last case we could talk about a discursive collectivization of individual
traumas, which sometimes is the downside of the first category. Thirdly, Angela
Khner suggests speaking of trauma induced collectives, i.e. large groups that
arent formed until their persecution.
3) In this conceptual framework we always have to ask what constituted the
traumatic effect, why, when, and in which context, and what have been the impacts
and the short-and long-term chances and limits for the traumatized to process and
adapt his experiences.
Notes
1
D. Becker, Die Schwierigkeit, massives Leid angemessen zu beschreiben und zu
verstehen: Traumakonzeptionen, gesellschaftlicher Prozess und die neue Ideologie
des Opfertums, Trauma und Wissenschaft, A. Karger (ed), Vandenhoeck und
Rupprecht, Gttingen, 2009, pp. 61-91.
2
V. Volkan, Bloodlines: From Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism, Farrar, Straus,
and Giroux, New York, 1997; V. Volkan, Gruppenidentitt und auserwhltes
Trauma, Psyche, Vol. 54, 2000, pp. 931-953; V. Vamik, Transgenerational
Transmissions and Chosen Traumas: An Aspect of Large-Group Identity, Group
Analysis, Vol. 34, 2001, pp. 79-97.
3
J. Alexander, Toward A Theory of Cultural Trauma, Cultural Trauma and
Collective Identity, J. Alexander et al. (eds), University Of California Press,
Berkeley/London, 2004, pp. 1-30.
4
Ibid., p. 8.
5
J. Alexander, 2004, p. 19.
6
Vamik: Transgenerational Transmissions and Chosen Traumas, 2001, p. 89.
7
E. Hobsbawm, Introduction: Inventing Traditions, The Invention of Tradition,
E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds), University Press, Cambridge, 1983, pp. 1-14.
8
E. Simmel [1918], Zur Psychoanalyse der Kriegsneurosen, Psychoanalyse und
ihre Anwendungen: Ausgewhlte Schriften, Fischer, Frankfurt a.M., 1993, pp. 21-
35; E. Simmel, Kriegsneurosen [1944], Ibid., pp. 204-226.
9
S. Freud [1921], Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, Standard
Edition 18.
10
E. Simmel, Kriegsneurosen, 1993, p. 212 (original emphasis, translated by
myself).
11
D. Burlingham and A. Freud, Young Children in War-Time, Allen & Unwin,
London, 1942.
12
A. Lorenzer, Zum Begriff der: Traumatischen Neurose, Psyche, Vol. 20, 1966,
pp. 481-492; A. Lorenzer [1968], Methodologische Probleme der Untersuchung
__________________________________________________________________
Traumatischer Neurosen, Perspektiven einer kritischen Theorie des Subjekts,

Seminar Verlag, Frankfurt a.M., 1972, pp. 32-43.
13
Lorenzer, Zum Begriff der Traumatischen Neurose, 1966, p. 488 (translated by
myself).
14
H. Keilson, Sequentielle Traumatisierung bei Kindern: Deskriptiv-klinische und
quantifizierend-statistische follow-up Untersuchung zum Schicksal der jdischen
Kriegswaisen in den Niederlanden, Ferdinand Enke, Stuttgart, 1979; H. Keilson,
Sequentielle Traumatisierung bei Kindern. Ergebnisse einer Follow-up-
Untersuchung, Schicksale der Verfolgten. Psychische und somatische.
Auswirkungen von Terrorherrschaft, H. Stoffels (ed), Springer, Berlin, 1991, pp.
98-109.
15
D. Becker, Die Erfindung des Traumas - Verflochtene Geschichten, Edition
Freitag, Berlin, 2006, p. 196 (translated by myself).
Bibliography
Alexander, J., Toward A Theory of Cultural Trauma. Cultural Trauma and
Collective Identity. Alexander, J. et al. (eds), University Of California Press,
Berkeley/London, 2004.
Becker, D., Die Erfindung des Traumas - Verflochtene Geschichten. Edition

Freitag, Berlin, 2006.
, Die Schwierigkeit, massives Leid angemessen zu beschreiben und zu

verstehen. Traumakonzeptionen, gesellschaftlicher Prozess und die neue Ideologie
des Opfertums. Trauma und Wissenschaft. Karger, A. (ed), Vandenhoeck und
Rupprecht, Gttingen, 2009.
Burlingham, D. & Freud, A., Young Children in War-Time. Allen & Unwin,
London, 1942.
Freud, S. [1921], Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Standard
Edition. Vol. 18. Hogarth, London, 1955, pp. 67-143.
Hobsbawm, E., Introduction: Inventing Traditions. The Invention of Tradition.

Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. (eds), University Press, Cambridge, 1983.
Keilson, H., Sequentielle Traumatisierung bei Kindern: Deskriptiv-klinische und

quantifizierend-statistische follow-up Untersuchung zum Schicksal der jdischen
Kriegswaisen in den Niederlanden. Ferdinand Enke, Stuttgart, 1979.
Markus Brunner 207
__________________________________________________________________
Laplanche J. [1992], Notes on Afterwardness. Essays on Otherness. Routledge,

London, 1999.
Lorenzer, A., Zum Begriff der Traumatischen Neurose. Psyche. Vol. 20, 1966,
pp. 481-492.
, Methodologische Probleme der Untersuchung Traumatischer Neurosen.

Perspektiven einer kritischen Theorie des Subjekts. Seminar Verlag, Frankfurt
a.M., 1972.
Simmel, E. [1918], Zur Psychoanalyse der Kriegsneurosen. Psychoanalyse und

ihre Anwendungen: Ausgewhlte Schriften. Fischer, Frankfurt a.M., 1993.
, Kriegsneurosen. Psychoanalyse und ihre Anwendungen: Ausgewhlte

Schriften. Fischer, Frankfurt a.M., 1993.
Volkan, V., Bloodlines: From Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism. Farrar, Straus, and
Giroux, New York, 1997.
Volkan, V., Gruppenidentitt und auserwhltes Trauma. Psyche. Vol. 54, 2000,
pp. 931-953.
Vamik, V., Transgenerational Transmissions and Chosen Traumas: An Aspect of

Large-Group Identity. Group Analysis. Vol. 34, 2001, pp. 79-97.
Markus Brunner is one of the coordinators of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Politische

Psychologie (Working group for Political Psychology at the Leibniz University
Hanover/Germany; http://www.agpolpsy.de), lecturer at the Sigmund-Freud-
University in Vienna/Austria and is writing his theses about the societal impacts of
mass traumatizations. Main research fields: Psychoanalysis, psychoanalytical
social psychology, trauma theory and the relation between social theory, arts and
political practice.
Destabilizing Narratives of Values and Belief Systems:
Identity Trauma in Warfare
Pamela Creed
Abstract
This chapter is a representation of a larger study; therefore, only one veteran of the
Iraq War is represented here. The chapter examines value commitments and the
process of transformation through narratives. It attempts to expose those
commitments, which shape a shared sense of cultural and national identity in the
United States, and analyze the dynamic process of transformation that some
soldiers experienced as they served in the war and experienced emotional and
violent trauma. The chapter examines this dynamic process through the narrative
patterns of a veteran as he describes the impact of specific moments in his tour that
destabilized his original value commitments and understanding of the justification
and objective of the war. The study also explores the degree to which this
emotional trauma led to difficult questions of national and personal identity.
Key Words: Iraq War, President G.W. Bush, veterans, narrative, identity
transformation, dehumanization, liminal, attunement, shame, humiliation.
*****
1. Introduction
On March 20, 2003, the United States invaded Iraq. At the time of this writing,
eight years later, what has become known as the occupation goes on. Many Iraq
War veterans I interviewed for the larger study offered solemn testimonies of
events both witnessed and committed since the Iraq War began. They revealed the
personal grappling with intense and difficult questions they faced as they
journeyed not only through the physical landscape of war, but also through the
interior emotional landscape of personal transformation. As a co nsequence of the
questions raised by their experiences in Iraq many of these veterans engaged in the
critically reflective act of challenging the categories of old belief systems and of
creating new ones.
In this chapter, I explore the lived experiences of one individual who served in
Iraq, but who, over time, began to question his previous thought-patterns and belief
systems. For the individual represented in this chapter (who does not claim to
speak for all veterans but only for himself), living the reality of the dominant
narrative patterns broadened the gap between belief and experience to a cr isis
point. Eventually, he constructed a counter narrative, which challenged the
presenting narratives identification of the enemy, characterizations of self and
other, the purpose of the mission and most importantly, the cultural assumptions
that provided the moral justification and legitimacy of the war.
210 Destabilizing Narratives of Values and Belief Systems
__________________________________________________________________
The presenting explanation embedded in the 9/11/Iraq War narrative patterns
fits an understanding of the world in which both good and evil exist as competing
forces, creating an easily understood moral order in which characters and acts can
be aligned. Thus, complexity was eliminated from the conflict narrative. A
storyline emerges easily within this frame, situating actors and action in predictable
positions. But questions concerning the legitimating narrative began to surface in
the minds of many of the soldiers who lived the reality it c reated. Questions
emerged slowly for some and suddenly for others, but resulted nonetheless in a
process of painful destabilization of how they understood their nation and
themselves.
I draw from the literature on narrative facilitation, which stems from the
assumption that perspectives can be transformed by expanding narratives. Mikhail
Bahktin 1 argues that the worlds categories and structures are determined through
dialogic processes; we interactively make meanings of experiences as we recount
such experiences. A turning point is the critical moment when the weight of
positive and negative traits shift. A shift occurs during the presence of reflection,
what Bahktin refers to as the reflective double voice. The reflective double voice
uses the voice of the other to question the self. It is this voice that opens space - the
liminal space between one place and another - for turning points to occur and
narratives to expand. 2
In this chapter I explore the dynamic process of narrative expansion
experienced by one soldier and the trauma of identity questions that emerged as the
storyline expanded and grew more complex. More voices were added - particularly
those of Iraqi soldiers, civilians and military personnel. The linear storyline grew
more circular and the fixed character roles fell apart. As these changes occurred, in
the case presented here, beliefs, value commitments and a sense of identity began
to change as well.
2. In Iraq: Living the Narrative The Soldiers Stories
Girl
You came to us eviscerated one day
Not a sound did you make; we were all amazed
Bowels tied with a t-shirt,
Dark dried blood on your soft brown skin
Just haunting curiosity at the death of your kin
We bore your fear and disgust with self-righteous displays

You sat quietly on a gurney all day
We were so shocked at the carnage and pain
You were so accepting and knew no blame
Pamela Creed 211
__________________________________________________________________
You are the young and innocent we thought
We had so much learn and so much to be taught
We learned much later that you were a sage
In a time and place consumed by rage
Now we are back and cant settle down

Because we were educated on pains fertile ground
Too bad the others dont know what we know
Or maybe its better to just let her go 3
The veterans I interviewed for the larger study expressed varying degrees of
anger, shame and guilt over both the public storylines, which they soon discovered
to be false, and the dehumanization of Iraqi soldiers and citizens, which
contradicted the values and beliefs anchoring the narrative. For many of them, a
new storyline emerged that challenged not only the basis of the old, but also the
underlying cultural assumptions upon which the presenting narrative was
constructed. The soldiers sent to confront the evil betrayer 4 too often became the
betrayed.
Participant 6 (P6), who I will call Mike, described how he felt before being
deployed to Iraq:
Its a bit like the allegory in the cave in that, you know, before my
experience there and all the reading I did while I was there, you
know, I was reacting to the shadows on the walls. I believed Colin
Powell and when he pulled him out 5, it was kind of like the
knight in shining armour thatll never lie to you or steal or tolerate
those that do, but as the information slowly started coming in, you
know, no WMD, etc., etc., it became harder to defend, and then I
quit defending it. 6
Immediately after 9/11, Mike went into the Army (where he had served once
before) because he viewed the attacks as a declaration of war. He felt shocked
and angry and unsure of what would happen next. He states that the government
and media fed the public fear so he felt an obligation to join the military because
we were gonna be around the world, kicking in doors with paratroopers and
everything. He wasnt sent to Afghanistan, however, so after his one-year service
expired he left the Army again and went to nursing school. 7
Mike had lived around the world, particularly in Muslim countries, and had
studied Arabic and the history of the Middle East. He was critical of U.S. foreign
policy in many countries before either of these wars occurred and believed that
many people and nations experienced humiliation under U.S. dominance. Still, he
supported the war in Afghanistan. He was, however, surprised by the war in Iraq.
__________________________________________________________________
Even so, he felt this commitment to defend America [and felt] its time for
people to ante up and put their money where their mouth is, you know, get the
people who did this. And he felt ashamed:
I was raised in this kind of West Point family tradition where you
share the burden and the danger of combat. When theres a war
going on and youre in for three years and you havent been to
combat at this point then you should feel ashamed of yourself, and
so it was my thing. I mean, I went [back] in specifically to go to
Iraq. 8
Over the course of his year of service it became harder and harder to legitimize
anything we were doing over there. One of the first things that happened to make
him question the honesty of leaders and the moral legitimacy of the mission
occurred during a medical conference while in Iraq. He tells this story:
Everyone answered the questions correctly at the conference, but I

was sitting in the audience going, We dont do that. Theres
always this scenario: we have three units of blood left and we have
ten patients and one of them is American. They all have similar
wounds and similar needs and one is American, two are Iraqi army
and two are Iraqi civilians, one of those being a child, and then an
insurgent. And then they would play with that scenario and say,
Okay, the insurgent has a slightly higher need than the rest for the
blood. And so not looking at who they are youre supposed to treat
the higher need first unless theyre not expected to live. You know,
everyone knows the right answer ethically is to treat the most need -
were not there to judge what anyone is except as people. You
know, they said, yeah, well the most need would get it first. You
know, I just started laughing. Im like, We dont do that ever. Like
the way we - we had an order of who we treated. Americans were
always first and then came Iraqi civilians, then Iraqi army, then
Iraqi police and then insurgents - and it wasnt even when things
were close, it was like, you know, the insurgent could have a
terrible need for OR and the American could really wait awhile and
they would take the American first. And the Kurdish population,
theyre very supportive of us. They were higher than, say, an Arab
family on the triage list because you assume an Arab family is
producing more insurgents, you just assume that. 9
Pamela Creed 213
__________________________________________________________________
The dehumanizing of Iraqis affected Mike deeply. He wrote poetry and short
anecdotes of events that struck him harder perhaps than others. He wrote of one
incident after a bad night filled with trauma patients from an IED blast:
A major piece of shrapnel was seen on an X-ray of an Iraqi Army

soldier who had lost his right arm. The decision was made to
remove the piece. There was much concern that the image on the X-
ray was an unexploded ordinance. Many of the docs and nurses
didnt want to go in and risk being injured for a f-g Haji. No one
would have questioned going in for an American. 10
He attempted to capture his conflicted feelings through writing:
It is interesting to see what a bomb does to bodies. The force blows

human bone fragments into others. I once saw a person that had
another persons finger lodged in his belly. Our orthopaedic surgeon
was quite pleased with himself when he determined it was the
medial and distal phalange of the third digit. After that, he went to
the gym with an interesting story to tell his friends at the ping-pong
tournament With time and fewer caregivers to feed my personal
defences, I dont laugh anymore. Funny how that stuff is, laugh one
month, cry the next. I am ashamed of the things we made light of
there. I wish I could go back sometimes and slap some people,
including myself. I just took my Ambien and went to bed most of
the time. 11
On R&R in April of 2006 Mike had the opportunity to view a segment of 60

Minutes. This moment also contributed to the increasing uncertainty towards the
presenting narrative, his old thought patterns and the war itself. He states:
It was all about Colonel M- and Tal Afar and how he has quelled the
insurgency there and come up with a n ew model, and apparently
thats what the surge is based on its all based on him and Tal
Afar. I was working at the hospital at that time and Tal Afar was
just a piece of shit. It was a Wild West show. We were getting
patients all the time from bombs and snipers and - but on, on
television, Im sitting there watching, you know, they show this one
guy, I think its a Civil Affairs guy, walking down the street, and all
the kids were yelling his name. And they were making Tal Afar
look like this haven, and Im sitting there going, That is nonsense.
Its like one of our worst areas as far as casualties go. Things like
that started really making me question everything. 12
__________________________________________________________________
Mike experienced depression and an inability to sleep during his last six
months in Iraq. He gained a lot of weight and began drinking more. His
experiences began to contradict what he had previously believed or thought. He
felt shocked, surprised and finally disillusioned. He states now that he is probably
more ashamed to be an American when I travel overseas than I have ever been in
my life. And when he discusses the torture that took place in some prisons he
states, We should all be ashamed of ourselves at this point. Mike came from a
family with a long military tradition. He believed Colin Powells testimony at the
United Nations and actively sought to be sent to Iraq to serve his country. He
believed in something he later came to see as a fabrication. 13
Working in a hospital where the helicopters flew in and out incessantly with
new casualties, he saw first-hand the horror of war. And he states that most of the
patients were not Americans, but Iraqi civilians and soldiers. After six months of
witnessing lesser value placed on Iraqi lives and what he perceived as
prevarications from media and leaders, he felt betrayed. As his experiences added
complexity to his understanding of the presenting narrative, the basis for its
simplistic storyline began to crumble. He experienced what Scheff describes as the
process of change: the transitional emotion of surprise, which leads to the
recognition of a hidden emotion. 14
Scheff argues that surprise moves us from one emotion to another - or from one
attitude to another. Between the two surprise and the recognition of a hidden
emotion - is attunement. 15 Attunement is a brief moment of cognitive and
emotional unity. This formula provides a way for understanding the dynamic
process of change that can occur when a narrative is expanded, creating the
ambiguity necessary to create a counter narrative by repositioning both self and a
storyline. 16
Mike was clearly surprised, again and again. And in moments of attunement,
gleaned from personal experiences, reading and media, the hidden emotion of
shame surfaced. Together they transformed his consciousness. He argues now that:
We need to move past the image of what tough is and what tough
isnt. Not using military force or even now not torturing or saying
youre against torture I think is perceived as weakness. To say I
dont want any kind of torture is seen as weak, you know, from
this sort of American male militant perspective. We need to like
somehow get rid of that. 17
Mike described critical turning points in which uncertainty was clearly present.
Through his stories it is clear that these moments of critical reflection opened the
liminal space necessary through which an individual can recognize competing
moral frameworks that are interdependent. In this space, where attunement occurs,
lies the location between social identities. Roles can shift, positions can alter and
Pamela Creed 215
__________________________________________________________________
perspectives can be stripped of rigid, fixed traits. Indeed, for Mike, positions and
previous belief systems did shift. It took him well over a year fighting depression,
excessive use of alcohol and weight gain to come to terms with those changes. 18
3. Conclusion
In this analysis I attempted to discover how Mike understood and responded to
the 9/11, Iraq narrative patterns and to discern the location of shifts in his
perspectives and attitudes toward the narrative patterns and the cultural
assumptions embedded within. In effect, I explored the dynamic process of this
individuals transformation from a tacit acceptance of a grand narrative to a
reflective consciousness that led to its rejection.
One objective was to reveal the role of emotional engagement for
transformation to occur. Therefore, it is hoped that this study will contribute to an
enhanced understanding of emotions as significant but often over-looked variables
concerning national and individual reactions to crises - reactions that far too often
compel us to unwittingly continue a cycle of destruction and death.
The dynamic and emotional process that individuals who lived the 9/11 Iraq
narratives experienced led, for many, to a r ejection of both war and intellectual
complacency. The physical journey through the brutal terrain of war imposed a
psychological and emotional journey as well, one that transformed this veteran,
and others, in small and great ways. Chris Hedges reminds us of the psychological
and emotive forces that compel us to violence, but he also gives us reason to hope.
If war (and violence) can provide meaning and purpose, then alternatives to
violence exist. Human beings are capable of finding meaning and purpose through
love, connection and empathy. The aggressive structures of society can transform
and create positive channels of energy in place of violent ones. 19 The journey of
this and of all the veterans who served in Iraq provides a powerful and imperative
lesson - not just for conflict practitioners - but also for all of us.
Notes
1
M. Bahktin, 20th century literary and linguistic scholar, is cited by S. Cobb in a
lecture at the Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason
University, Arlington, VA, (2005).
2
Ibid.
3
Personal Interview with Participant 6, a veteran of the Iraq War who served 15
months during 2005-2006. In order to keep his identity confidential, I refer to him
as P6 or Mike. The interview was conducted in Silver Spring, MD.
4
A reference to Saddam Hussein used by President Bush in several public
speeches.
5
P6 (Mike) is referring to President Bush sending Colin Powell to speak at the
United Nations in an attempt to gain international support for the Iraq narrative.
__________________________________________________________________
6
Personal Interview, 2005-2006, op. cit.
7
Ibid.
8
9
Ibid.
10
11
Ibid.
12
13
Ibid.
14
Personal Interview, 2005-2006. See also J. Scheff, Roots of War and Peace:
Emotions and Bonds in Moral Shock, a paper presented at the Human Dignity and
Humiliation Studies Conference at Columbia University, NY, 2005.
15
Attunement is similar to the liminal space described in narrative facilitation, the
reflective double voice from Bakhtin and representational thinking conceptualized
by Arendt as cited by Emirbayer and Mische.
16
See J. Scheff, Roots of War and Peace, 2005 and M. Emirbayer and A. Mische,
What is Agency? New School for Social Research, Vol. 103(4), pp. 962-1023.
17
18
Ibid.
19
See C. Hedges, War is a Force that Gives us Meaning, Public Affairs,
Cambridge, MA, 2002.
Bibliography
Cobb, S., Comments Made during Workshop Discussions. Narrative Facilitation
Workshop. George Mason University, Arlington, VA, 2007.
Hedges, C., War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning. Public Affairs, Cambridge,
MA, 2002.
Scheff, T.J., Roots of War and Peace: Emotions and Bonds in Moral Shock.
Unpublished paper presented at the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies
Conference. Columbia University, NY, December 2005.
Winslade, J. and Monk, G., Narrative Mediation. Jossey-Bass Publishers, San

Francisco, CA, 2001.
Pamela Creed holds a PhD in International Conflict Resolution from the Institute
of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in Virginia. She
currently lives in Belgrade where she teaches at the University of Belgrade and
facilitates workshops in Peace Education for grassroots constituents in Serbia.
A Feel for the Organism: Cultural and Methodological Contexts
of Trauma Psychology from a Somatic-Energetic Perspective
Philip M. Helfaer
Abstract
The author, an experienced practitioner and teacher of bioenergetic analysis, a
therapy based on a somatic-energetic point of view, considers this perhaps the most
appropriate approach to work with sequelae of traumatic stress, addressing as it
does mind, body, emotions, and energetic states. He finds a peculiar split in the
therapeutic world, wherein virtually all institutions (medical, academic, veterans),
do not utilize somatic-energetic work, while at the same time increasing numbers
of practitioners and experts outside these institutions do recommend somatic-
energetic approaches. He states this split has meaning. Exploration of these
meanings reveals that cultural and sociological aspects of institutional life and of
the society play the largest role in determining treatment modality, including what
comes to be considered evidence based treatments. The author suggests that
attitudes and approaches based on thinking and perceiving influenced by
dissociation and societys capacity to recognize and deal with it, the very
phenomena being studied, underlie a r estrictive way of examining the actual
phenomena. He states that what is needed is the methodological underlay
characterized in biology as a feel for the organism, based on careful, caring,
detailed observation. Naturalistic observation is missing from many approaches: it
is inherent to the somatic-energetic point of view. Therefore what is required to
institute this practice more widely in institutional life involves deep changes,
socially and culturally, within the institutions, their values, and the culture of their
professed scientific methodologies.
Key Words: Bioenergetic analysis, trauma, therapy, somatic-energetic, a feel for

the organism, methodology in psychology, scientific method and culture,
dissociation, self as body.
*****
1. A Question
Where is the body in current therapies of trauma?
My observations and questions are based on forty years of clinical experience
working in the somatic-energetic therapy named bioenergetic analysis. From my
experience, I have gained a degree of understanding, a capacity for observation,
and a set of conceptual and analytic tools. 1 Searching for answers to this question
led me to some observations on the culture and institutions within which the
research and treatment of trauma occurs.
218 A Feel for the Organism
__________________________________________________________________
Two observations about the surface of our cultural situation:
1. The professional context, both in Israel and the U.S., is

characterized by a p eculiar split. The somatic therapies are
not taught or practiced in academic, veterans, or medical
institutions. Two recent handbooks on PTSD, edited by
essentially the same people, 2 make no mention of somatic
oriented therapies. 3
2. At the same time, somatic approaches are advocated by a

growing number of practitioners and by a growing number of
recognized experts working outside these institutions. 4 The
International Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis has a
membership of about one thousand members from Europe,
North and South America, Israel, and New Zealand.
Bioenergetic analysis is distinguished by providing the conceptual and

perceptual tools for a t horough analysis of the somatic-energetic aspects of
personality, by a d evelopmental perspective, and by a d ynamic and functional
conception of character and personality. It is thus a comprehensive (as well as the
oldest) approach to the study of individual functioning in terms of somatic-
energetic process. There are other significant somatic (not necessarily energetic)
approaches. 5
To those of us who work with and understand the somatic oriented therapies,
nothing could be more self-evident than that this is often the most appropriate
approach to working with trauma spectrum disorders. Clinical outcomes are
positive. From a theoretical perspective, traumatic memory is commonly
understood to be encoded as sensation, body feeling, and other sensory experience.
The most direct approach to these unconscious memories is through the senses
and energetic processes. Empirical evidence of efficacy for bioenergetic analysis is
slowly developing. 6
3. And a preliminary conclusion: Introducing somatically

oriented therapies for trauma into these institutions means
changing their culture. It is not simply a matter of
establishing empirical evidence supporting the approaches.
And from here I find that:
4. The scientific literatures around evidence based practices show

revealing distortions. And most importantly:
Philip M. Helfaer 219
__________________________________________________________________
5. What I believe is the missing element in understanding and
developing trauma treatment is what in biology has been
named a feeling for the organism. In psychology we could
combine this with a feeling for the person. These
observations (1-5) developed from learning to look, observe,
experience, and see.
2. The Split Is Meaningful

I believe that this surface split is meaningful. It has implications for how
trauma and its effects are understood. It has implications for the meaning of
establishing evidence based treatments. It means that the introduction into
institutional and professional life of somatic-energetic approaches to treatment
entails social change - change in institutions and culture, more so than science.
At a superficial level is the consideration that most institutional offices are not
set up to accommodate the movements or sounds (even deep crying) that might
ensue from a patient working through traumatic memories in a somatic-energetic
therapy. Further, to work with the body in a therapy inevitably means to be in the
presence of intense emotion. To be comfortable with these expressions requires
training and experience, including of ones own deep emotions. This is not
everyones cup of tea, especially in the professions. A third, surface aspect, has to
do with status in the professions; and the body approaches do not establish status in
the institutions. These observations reflect the culture and sociological
characteristics of the milieus in which trauma studies tend to occur and in which
professionals reside.
3. Deeper Aspects: Who and what are We Treating? And is It a Treatment?

A treatment in bioenergetic analysis begins with observation of the patient, and
he or she is a co-explorer in the process. Cognitive behavioral approaches, for the
most part, begin with a model of what the disturbance is, and proceed with the
protocol for it. Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD (PET) 7 is a paradigmatic
example. The model is based on the idea of the fear structure. It is not my
purpose to criticize this therapy, but to contrast it with the significantly different
approach of bioenergetic analysis.
In a bioenergetic analysis, I want to know who the person is and exactly how
the trauma spectrum disorder is functioning in his or her person. This is a
demanding process for both therapist and patient. However, it offers the possibility
of the widest range of opportunities for (posttraumatic) growth. In addition, it
offers the widest range of opportunities for learning about trauma spectrum
disorders: what they are in terms of how they affect the individual, how they
function in the individual, how they arise in the first place, and how they develop
over time. The first questions are still, who is the person and how is he or she
functioning?
__________________________________________________________________
4. An Ironic Question: Why is Somatic-Energetic Therapy not the Primary
Model for Treatment?
There are two cases to consider in relation to this question.
1. The cognitive-behavioral therapies were widely adopted

amongst academic psychologists. Jonathan Shedler, an
American psychologist and psychoanalyst, describes the
eagerness with which the academic community, excluded for
so many years from organized psychoanalysis, greeted news
of the efficacy of non-analytic techniques; 8 and they
promulgated the notion that psychodynamic therapy was not
supported by scientific evidence. It is not surprising, as
well, that the body, especially the body-as-the-person, has
not found much place in the curricula of academic
psychology departments.
2. The case of psychoanalytic tradition is more complex.

Somatic-energetic therapy grew out of early psychoanalysis,
specifically originating with Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957).
While many of his colleagues followed Reich in his
development of character analysis, they did not follow him
into the somatic realm. However, amongst perhaps the
majority of psychoanalytic writers, the self is considered as
the body.
W. W. Meissner, a senior psychoanalytic scholar in Boston, U.S.A., wrote an

important series of articles about the body in psychoanalysis. 9 His statement that
the self is a body-self is appropriate for a bioenergetic textbook:
.... Both of these aspects (self as subject and self as object) are
inextricably immersed (sic) in bodily functions, so that any
comprehensive theory of the self has to connote the
embeddedness and intimate integration of the self as inherently
bodily. I will argue that all psychic functions are inherently
involved in bodily processes of one sort or another. 10
In its entirety this is as clear and eloquent a s tatement as there can be, and it
could be taken as the first premise for a theory of bioenergetic analysis. So what
happened? Simply, this is not how psychoanalysis developed. As Meissner states,
__________________________________________________________________
On the couch bodily manifestations continue unabated .... If these
behavioral manifestations are important as direct expressions of
bodily processes, they must take a b ackseat to the specifically
verbal behavior that constitutes the core of observational data in
psychoanalysis. 11
In other words, we see, but we do not make use of these data in psychoanalysis;
they are not the basis for determining therapeutic interventions. Meissner reflects
the accepted analytic posture. Psychoanalytic theory encompasses a conception of
self as body-self, and at the same time bodily, somatic-energetic interventions are
not a part of the technique. This is how it stands! Might we not find it strange?
Fereneczi and, much more so, Reich, pointed the way to a technique with a
somatic orientation. Their lead was not followed, even though, for over one-
hundred years now, there have been, as Meissner comments, 12 two bodies in the
therapeutic consulting room. How and why did somatic-energetic technique and
theory become split off from psychoanalysis?
5. Confusion of Tongues
I cannot claim a definitive answer to this question. I believe, nonetheless, that
the question is worth asking. In any case, given the differences in technique and
theory, I believe it was necessary and advantageous for bioenergetic analysis to
develop separately and in its own milieu; perhaps this is still the case. Now,
however, I also believe there would be great gains, especially in the treatment of
trauma, if bioenergetic analysis and other somatic-energetic therapies were to find
a place within various institutional worlds. For this to happen, the question needs
to be pursued.
Recently, when I spoke with another professional therapist about the somatic-
energetic approach, she said, You are talking a different language. Really? Is
there something about bringing the body into the psychotherapy field that
introduces a new language? As if the language of the body were not a part of
regular language? Do we enter a different land, a different culture? I consider that
her response is quite characteristic of a n umber of people I have spoken with
recently.
It is certainly true that we introduce a new perspective, or as I have been calling
it, point of view. It is also true that we talk about different phenomena, bodily and
energetic. However, these, as indicated in the discussion of Meissners writing, are
not phenomena that are not observed in other therapies. In our therapy, they are
looked at differently, and they are put into their (rightfully, as I see it), core place
in the therapy.
Sandor Ferenczi (1873-1933) was one of Freuds closest collaborators. Like
Reich, he was original and creative, and like Reich he returned the idea of sexual
trauma to being the central etiological factor in neurosis. He wrote a remarkable
__________________________________________________________________
paper called Confusion of Tongues (1932). 13 I find in it a reflection of my
colleagues comment, You are talking a different language. Ferenczi is referring
to the radical difference between a child seeking or expressing warmth, love, and
tenderness to a parent or other adult, and the adult responding with adult sexual
passion. They do not speak the same language.
Is it possible that the intrinsic difficulty, avoidance, shame, and horror of facing
traumatic sequelae are at work in the avoidance and rejection of the body in the
field of psychotherapy? I am inclined to believe so.
Disassociation and denial are somatic-energetic phenomena: they always
involve the denial or disassociation from specific bodily experiences, sensations, or
emotions related to them. In the case of complex developmental traumas, denial
and disassociation readily become embedded in characterological developments.
For people who become therapists, including somatic-energetic therapists, this kind
of development, in my experience, is hardly uncommon. Inevitably, they
themselves avoid aspects of their own body experiences. In this and other ways,
the profession itself can become complicit in supporting a prevailing social ethos
of denial, even of disassociation. Identifying and working with disassociation,
denial, and forgetting remain challenges, as do the whole range of traumatic
sequelae, despite their long history in the field of psychotherapy. 14
6. Methodological Disarray
Methodological disarray is another aspect to this picture, also reflective of the
current ethos in psychological research. While cognitive-techniques of various
kinds are often considered state-of-the art, evidence based techniques, there are
several different approaches within the larger cognitive-behavioral domain, and
these approaches continue to evolve. 15 In some clinical settings, the therapeutic
paradigm involves an amalgam of various protocols. 16 The field is quite fluid, and
paradigms are shifting.
The clinical process by which choices are made between various approaches
and various aspects of different approaches lies outside the protocols of the specific
therapies which make up the amalgam. What is the theoretical basis for these
choices and the therapeutic process other than the clinicians sensitivity, creativity,
and experience? A somatic-energetic understanding of the person can fill this gap,
encouraging a more holistic process.
In addition, Third wave 17 cognitive-behavioral techniques are being
developed which frankly include or are based on, not learning theory, but on
conceptions such as mindfulness and acceptance. 18 These practices are in fact
embedded (in theory and in practice) in bioenergetic analysis.
Of even more interest is the state of the state of the art research evidence.
Shedlers review showed psychodynamic therapy having efficacy comparable to
important cognitive-behavioral approaches (DBT), and longer lasting effects.
__________________________________________________________________
... the available evidence indicates that effect sizes for
psychodynamic therapies are as large as those reported for other
treatments that have been actively promoted as empirically
supported and evidence based. 19
This is significant because until very recently, psychodynamic therapy has been
considered an unsubstantiated modality. Like bioenergetic analysis, its goals are
the development of the whole person, as a self.
Shedlers survey has further significance. He reviewed studies of cognitive
behavioral approaches in which the effectiveness of the treatment did not result
from the cognitive behavioral concept, but when its application involved
characteristics of psychodynamic therapy!
It indicates that the (often unacknowledged) active ingredients

of other therapies include techniques and processes that have
long been core, centrally defining features of psychodynamic
treatment. ... 20
I am not trying to invalidate cognitive-behavioral approaches. I believe they are

important and useful. However, the methodology from which empirical evidence
supporting the efficacy of these approaches does not get into the grain of the
process of the therapy, nor, in fact, into a d eeper understanding of the
psychobiological processes involved. Further, the therapeutic protocols may
themselves be influenced by their amenability to a r esearch design. These
inadequacies are supported within institutional culture and practice.
7. A Feel for the Organism

In psychology the drive toward evidence based treatments, proven to work,
has evolved out of a particular culture and has aided in sustaining that culture as
the status quo. I am not against empirical research, nor consensual validation. What
is happening, however, is that what may be good research may be poor psychology
that lacks a psychological and observational feel for the issues of treatment.
The phrase, a feel for the organism, is used in a particular way in biology, for
example in reference to the work of the Nobel prize winning geneticist, Barbara
McClintock 21 and, of course, to Charles Darwin. 22 It refers to theoretical ideas
guiding and aided by keen observations of meticulous details, (and) excellent
knowledge of natural history. 23
The development of a t herapeutic approach must be based on a f eel for the
organism, and, since the organism is the human being, it must be supplemented by
a feel for the person. These are acquired by observation, guided by theoretical
ideas and aided by keen observation of meticulous details.24
__________________________________________________________________
Observation is the first and last essential of scientific method. In the therapeutic
situation, it is the first and last method of the therapist. The somatic-energetic point
of view is essentially a set of conceptual and perceptual skills based in experiential
training to guide the therapists observation of the patient.
Notes
1
P.M. Helfaer, Sex and Self-Respect: The Quest for Personal Fulfillment,
Bioenergetics Press, Alachua, FL, 1998/2006.
2
E. Foa, T.M. Keane, M.J. Friedman and J.A. Cohen (eds), Effective Treatments
for PTSD: Practice Guidelines from the International Society for Traumatic Stress
Studies, Second Edition, Guilford Press, NY, 2009; M.J. Friedman, T.M. Keane
and P.A. Resick (eds), Handbook of PTSD: Science and Practice, Guilford Press,
NY, 2007.
3
I do not consider EMDR a body therapy.
4
For example: R. Scaer, The Body Bears the Burden. Trauma, Dissociation, and
Disease, The Haworth Medical Press, Binghamton, NY, 2001 and R. Scaer, The
Trauma Spectrum: Hidden Wounds and Human Resiliency, W.W. Norton & Co,
NY, 2005. See also B. van der Kolk, A.C. McFarlane and L. Weisath, Traumatic
Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body and Society, The
Guilford Press, NY, 2006 and B. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score:
Memory and the Emerging Psychobiology of Post-Traumatic Stress, Harvard
Review of Psychiatry, Vol. 1(5), 1994, pp. 253-265.
5
P.A. Levine, Waking the Tiger, North Atlantic Press, Berkeley, CA, 1997; P.
Ogden, K. Minton and C. Pain, Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach
to Psychotherapy, W.W. Norton, NY, 2006.
6
M. Koemeda-Lutz, M. Kaschke, D. Revenstorf, T. Scherrmann, H. Weiss and U.
Soeder, Preliminary Results Concerning the Effectiveness of Body-
Psychotherapies in Outpatient Settings A Multi-Centre Study in Germany and
Switzerland, The US Body Psychotherapy Journal, Vol. (4) 2, 2005, pp. 13-32.
7
E.B. Foa, E.A. Hembree and B.O. Rothbaum, Prolonged Exposure Therapy for
PTSD: Emotional Processing of Traumatic Experiences, Therapist Guide, Oxford
8
J. Shedler, The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Therapy, American Psychologist,
Vol. 65, No. 2, 2010, pp. 98-109.
9
W.W. Meissner, The Self and the Body: I. The Body Self and the Body Image,
Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, Vol. 20, No. 4, 1997, pp. 419-48;
W.W. Meissner, The Self and the Body: II. The Embodied Self Self vs Non-
Self, Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, Vol. 21, No.1, 1998a, pp. 85-
111; W.W. Meissner, The Self and the Body: III. The Body Image in Clinical
Perspective, Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, Vol. 21, No. 1, 1998b,
pp. 113-146; and W.W. Meissner, The Self and the Body: IV. The Body on the
__________________________________________________________________
Couch, Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, Vol. 21, No. 2, 1998c, pp.
277-300.
10
Meissner, 1997, pp. 420-421.
11
Meissner, 1998c, p. 281.
12
Meissner, 1998c, pp. 278-79.
13
Van Haute and Geyskens, 2004, p. 89.
14
J. Stern, Denial, Harper Collins Publisher, NY, 2010. In this personal memoir,
Stern explores the ethos of denial in relation to the effects of sexual violence and
abuse in the United States in the latter part of the 20th century and the beginning of
the 21st. She believes her observations are relevant to understanding the problem of
PTSD of returning veterans. Stern is known for her work on terrorism and
terrorists.
15
V.M. Follette, K.M. Palm and M.L. Rasmussen Hall, Acceptance, Mindfulness,
and Trauma, Mindfulness and Acceptance: Expanding the Cognitive-Behavioral
Tradition, S.C. Hayes, V.M. Follette and M.M. Linehan (eds), The Guilford Press,
NY, 2004, pp. 192-208; C.M. Monson, M.J. Friedman and H. La Bash, A
Psychological History of PTSD, Handbook of PTSD: Science and Practice, M.J.
Friedman, T.M. Keane and P.A. Resick (eds), 2007, Guilford, NY, 2007, pp. 37-
52; J. Shedler, The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Therapy, American Psychologist,
Vol. 65, No. 2, 2010, pp. 98-109.
16
Follette, et al., 2004.
17
Monson, et al., 2007, p. 47.
18
Follette, et al., 2004.
19
Shedler, 2010, p. 107.
20
Ibid., p. 107.
21
E.F. Keller, A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara
McClintock, W. H. Freeman, San Francisco, 1983.
22
E. Szathmary, Darwin for All Seasons, Science, Vol. 313, 2006, p. 306,
retrieved at http://www.sciencemag.org, Published by AAAS.
23
Ibid.
24
Ibid.
Bibliography
Foa, E.B., Hembree, E.A. and Rothbaum, B.O., Prolonged Exposure Therapy for
PTSD: Emotional Processing of Traumatic Experiences, Therapist Guide. Oxford
__________________________________________________________________
Foa, E.B., Keane, T.M., Friedman, M.J. and Cohen, J.A., Effective Treatments for
PTSD: Practice Guidelines from the International Society for Traumatic Stress
Studies. Second Edition, Guilford Press, NY 2009.
Follette, V.M., Palm, K.M. and Rasmussen Hall, M.L., Acceptance, Mindfulness,
and Trauma. Mindfulness and Acceptance: Expanding the Cognitive-Behavioral
Tradition. Hayes, S.C., Follette, V.M. and Linehan, M.M. (eds), The Guilford
Press, NY, 2004.
Friedman, M.J., Keane, T.M. and Resick, P.A. (eds), Handbook of PTSD: Science
and Practice. Guilford Press, NY, 2007.
Hayes, S.C., Follette, V.M. and Linehan, M.M. (eds), Mindfulness and
Acceptance: Expanding the Cognitive-Behavioral Tradition. The Guilford Press,
NY, 2004.
Helfaer, P.M., Sex and Self-Respect: The Quest for Personal Fulfillment.
Bioenergetics Press, Alachua, FL, 1998/2006.
Keller, E.F., A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara
McClintock. W. H. Freeman, San Francisco, 1983.
Koemeda-Lutz, M., Kaschke M., Revenstorf, D., Scherrmann T., Weiss, H. and
Soeder, U., Preliminary Results Concerning the Effectiveness of Body-
Psychotherapies in Outpatient Settings: A Multi-Centre Study in Germany and
Switzerland. The US Body Psychotherapy Journal. Vol. (4) 2, 2005, pp. 13-32.
Levine, P.A., Waking the Tiger. North Atlantic Press, Berkeley CA, 1997.
Meissner, W.W., The Self and the Body: I. The Body Self and the Body Image.
Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought. Vol. 20, No.4, 1997, pp. 419-48.
____
, The Self and the Body: II. The Embodied Self Self vs Non-Self.
Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought. Vol. 21, No. 1, 1998a, pp. 85-111.
____
, The Self and the Body: III. The Body Image in Clinical Perspective.
Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought. Vol. 21, No. 1, 1998b, pp. 113-146.
____
, The Self and the Body: IV. The Body on the Couch. Psychoanalysis and
Contemporary Thought. Vol. 21, No. 2, 1998c, pp. 277-300.
__________________________________________________________________
Monson, C.M., Friedman, M.J. and La Bash, H., A Psychological History of

PTSD. Handbook of PTSD: Science and Practice. Friedman, M.J., Keane, T.M.
and Resick, P.A. (eds), Guilford Press, NY, 2007.
Ogden, P., Minton, K. and Pain, C., Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor
Approach to Psychotherapy. W.W. Norton, NY, 2006.
Scaer, R., The Body Bears the Burden: Trauma, Dissociation, and Disease. The
Haworth Medical Press, Binghamton, NY, 2001.
____
, The Trauma Spectrum: Hidden Wounds and Human Resiliency. W.W. Norton,
NY, 2005.
Shedler, J., The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Therapy. American Psychologist.

Vol. 65, No. 2, 2010, pp. 98-109.
Stern, J., Denial. Harper Collins Publisher, NY, 2010.
Szathmry, E., Darwin for All Seasons. Science. Vol. 313, 2006, p. 306.
van Haute, P. and Geyskens, T., Confusion of Tongues: The Primacy of Sexuality
in Freud, Ferenczi, & LaPlanche. Other Press, NY, 2004.
van der Kolk, B., McFarlane, A.C. and Weisath, L., Traumatic Stress: The Effects
of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society. The Guilford Press, NY,
2006
van der Kolk, B., The Body Keeps the Score: Memory and the Emerging
Psychobiology of Post Traumatic Stress. Harvard Review of Psychiatry. Vol. 1(5),
1994, pp. 253-265.
Philip M. Helfaer, Ph.D., originally from U.S.A., resides with his wife, Vellie, in
Israel, where he has been coordinating trainer for the Israel Institute for
Bioenergetic Analysis. He has studied, practiced, and taught this discipline for
forty years, and continues to seek to understand the nature of traumatic experience
and its effects in the individual and society. Contact at pmhelfaer@hotmail.com.
Further references for author at http://www.bioenergeticanalyis.org.il.
Psychoanalysis and Trauma: Changes in the Theory and the
Practice, from Freud to the Shoah
Clara Mucci
Abstract
After a b rief presentation of Freuds and Ferenczis different positions within the
psychoanalytic theory of trauma, the author analyses some relevant developments
in this theory, made necessary after twentieth centurys wars and genocides and
especially after the Shoah, which meant a watershed in history and in the notion of
massive social trauma. Working in psychotherapy with survivors and the following
generations means an active work in the reconstruction of the reality of the event:
reconstructing the truth as carefully as possible is the only way to avoid the
compulsion to repeat in the second and third generations and to reduce the
devastating effects of trauma in individuals and in society.
Key Words: Trauma, pychoanalysis, intergenerational trauma, reality, history,

fantasy, reparation, ethics.
*****
1. Freud and Ferenczi: The Theory of Trauma at the Beginning

As is well known, Freuds theorization of trauma starts with his practice with
female patients who had developed hysterical symptoms. At the beginning, he
thought that the cause of the symptoms was repression of a real event that he terms
seduction, something we would call abuse or even sexual abuse nowadays. He
distinguishes between a first moment, in which the prepubertal stimulation by an
adult is not at first perceived as sexual by the child, and a s econd moment, after
puberty, that gives the first episode its meaning and fixates its traumatic core, in a
deferred action that Freud calls nachtraglich. It is only after this second moment
that the first episode is repressed and, if something goes wrong in this defensive
process, a hysterical symptom might be formed. Freud continuously revises his
theory: his major doubt was about the reality of the seduction; was it a real event or
an imagined, fantasied one? The watershed in this debate can be found in the
famous letter to Fliess on 21 September 1897, in which he abandons his theory of
actual sexual abuse in favour of the fantasied version of it, for several reasons. He
considers this discovery a dramatic collapse of everything valuable 1; however he
continues throughout his life to vacillate between acknowledging actual abuse or
theorizing fantasied seduction. In fact in 1916-17 he states that in neuroses it is
psychical reality which is the decisive kind. 2 Traumatization as a result seems to
be the outcome of both external and internal sources. In Beyond the Pleasure
Principle he develops a new view of trauma as the result of the break of an internal
shield against an overwhelming stimulum; both the shield and the stimulum are
230 Psychoanalysis and Trauma
__________________________________________________________________
relevant to the traumatization and are linked to individual features. What is
bearable for somebody (similar stimulum) might not be for another being (because
the threshold is lower and the impact therefore more devastating). If the excitement
is greater than what the system can bear, traumatization is created, and the
apparatus goes back to a previous state of development; it is at this point that the
death principle or the compulsion to repeat is involved: in order to try to abreact or
free the system from the overwhelming excitation, the individual is forced to repeat
the event with its psychic and physical symptoms in an effort to overcome it and
dispel it. As a consequence, the system is trapped in the repetition of the trauma as
if it were always happening in the present, with no time frame. In fact, the
traumatic time is always current, through flashbacks, memories and other
mechanisms which lead back to the past situation (as in dreams, for instance).
Another way to react to trauma (as the hysterics show in their behaviour) is to
delete the memory of the event and to create a physical symptom instead.
In another writing, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, Freud states that a
traumatic situation can occur both as a r esult of excessive external events or
excessive internal instinctual demands. The ego is therefore overwhelmed with
anxiety. We are still within a psycho-economic model of trauma. This was still a
time for psychoanalysis in which drive-related conflicts and fixations of the libido
were the fundamental concepts, therefore trauma was not a major preoccupation
for the aetiology of mental disorders. We have to wait until the 1950s and the
studies on the early childhood development to arrive at a new concern with trauma;
in addition, the catastrophes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with the
increase of social violence and also aggression within the families, and with a
concern for the abuse and maltreatment of children and women, have brought to
the fore a new consideration for trauma and its consequences in psychoanalysis.
An exception to this kind of theorization at the time of Freud and in a sense an
exception to the neglect of the relevance of trauma for pathology came from
Sandor Ferenczi, who never doubted that his patients had been traumatized as an
effect of real events and real abuse. To Freud who asked how he could be sure that
the patients were not presenting fantasies of seduction, he would say that several
patients actually acknowledged that they had abused children, therefore they were
the perpetrators. Clearly, external events were of fundamental importance in
understanding the real impact of trauma; Ferenczi was also the initiator of a new
therapeutic attitude when working with traumatized patients: contrary to Freuds
distant and neutral stance, he proposed a m ore empathic and sincere, honest
attitude, in which even the vulnerability of the analyst and his feelings could come
out in the open if necessary. Re-establishing a strong trust between patient and
analyst was for him the fundamental tool in therapy.
Ferenczi analyses with incredible intuition elements related to trauma that
would be discussed only several decades later, for instance the splitting of the
traumatized ego, the numbness and blocking of affects, the possible identification
Clara Mucci 231
__________________________________________________________________
with the aggressor and the sense of guilt that comes with that (the child is imbued
with the guilt that comes originally from the aggressor). Finally, a turning point for
psychoanalytic theory and a deeper understanding of treatment is his famous work
Confusion of tongues between adults and the child, 3 in which the difference in
attitude between parent and child is stressed, the latter being in need only of
tenderness, the former trapped in a sort of passion which might become a sexual
intrusion onto the child. His work was rejected by Freud and his community at the
time. Nowadays, it has been re-evaluated and is appreciated, to the point of making
Ferenczi the initiator of the intersubjective and interpersonal trend of
psychoanalysis.
2. Further Developments
Since the 1950s, with Kris and Sandler (strain trauma, Masud Khan,
(cumulative trauma), Bowlby (deprivation trauma), the relationship of the child
to the caregiver and vice versa and the importance of the object relation created
between them has acquired more and more relevance. But the problem was, is this
concept of trauma, that which is created within the relation between a d eficient
mother, or caregiver, and the child, similar to the massive, extreme trauma human
beings face in war, genocide, extermination (also involving human agency and not
catastrophic natural events)? In the case of relational trauma, the damage occurs
within a relationship, more than being caused by a single event with a repercussion
on the psyche of the subject.
When physical abuse of a ch ild is concerned, for instance, more than the
physical injury what is experienced as traumatic is that the maltreatment comes
from the person who should be taking care of the child (most of the times a third
person, the mother usually, is a passive onlooker, which results in additional
traumatization as a breach in trust for the child). In the case of incest, the situation
is even more complicated, and traditional psychoanalytic approaches based on
Oedipal complex and seduction fantasies even suggested some kind of
participation on behalf of the child in the actual event, that is, the childs seductive
contribution. Luckily enough, in the 1980s there was a change in attitude in the
psychoanalytic community; it was the time in which the controversial repressed
memory debate, especially in the States and in English speaking countries,
exploded. As has already been noted, in psychoanalysis the unconscious fantasies
and the repressed memories are equally difficult to trace and at the same time both
contribute to pathology, and therefore the validity of childhood memories captured
through an adult psychoanalytic psychotherapy is difficult to prove. The present
debate has become a discussion about memory and ways of encoding the traumatic
memory. 4 It would appear that traumatic memories are specifically encoded
because of the hyperarousal attached to them. More than a semantic memory, the
traumatic trace becomes a state of affect, a smell, a physical sensation, especially if
it is a v ery early memory: since the encoding of memories takes place through a
__________________________________________________________________
word label, this is not possible if the child is too young and unable to speak.
Besides, traumatic memories have a special quality that rests or is kept in the
dissociative states.
Recent research in relational trauma (early abuse and neglect in infancy) has
revealed that, when the mother suffers from unresolved trauma, her chaotic and
dysregulated alterations of state become imprinted into the developing brain and
self-system of the child: this intersubjective psychopathogenic mechanism thus
mediates the psychobiological intergenerational transmission of both relational
trauma and the dissociative defence against overwhelming and dysregulating
affective states 5 and acts as a risk factor for later psychiatric disorders. From a
developmental neuroscience perspective, the immediate impact is on the altered
metabolic processes that poorly sustain the growth of the developing right brain
capacity to regulate life stressors that generate intense affect states.
3. The Problem of Real vs Fantasied Trauma: The Case of the Holocaust

The problem of whether the recovered memory is true or reconstructed through
fantasy remains; but I would be very suspicious of a statement like this, coming
from two very authoritative voices within the psychoanalytic field: There can be
only psychic reality behind a recovered memorywhether there is historical truth
and historical reality is not our business as psychoanalysts and psychotherapists.
This a sentence by Peter Fonagy and Mary Target, writing an essay in a book dated
1997. 6 It is a very problematic stance, because it seems to imply that the difference
between what has happened for sure and what did not happen is not important. As
Werner Bohleber underlines: Psychoanalysis, originally undertaken in order to
discover repressed childhood memories, is now in danger of becoming a treatment
technique that actually fades out history. 7 I could not agree more: if there is a
feature characteristic of psychoanalysis throughout its developmental phases over
the years and centuries, it is its contribution to the discovery of a kind of disguised
or covered or repressed truth, therefore, an ethical stance lies at the core of the
psychoanalytic practice, in my mind: psychoanalysis both in theory and in practice
cannot but be a contribution to the restoration of truth in the individual and in
society. I therefore agree totally with Ilse Grubrich-Simitis when she states that,
when working with severely traumatized patients:
the analyst has to resist not only his natural need to protect
himself but also the tendency, reinforced by his training, to
bypass reality and to devote his attention, from the beginning, to
the patients fantasies. It is only to the extent that the historical
reality is ascertained that the patient will be able to approach his
own inner and outer reality. 8
Clara Mucci 233
__________________________________________________________________
After the Holocaust and the occurrence of post-war disorders in the survivors,
disorders which nonetheless came to the attention of psychoanalysts very late,
something like 25 years later at least, it is not possible to accept that trauma and
reality are not necessarily linked together and therefore I think the recuperation of
historical truth is fundamental (as opposed to something that has been and still is
fashionable in psychoanalysis, that is, narrative truth). The pioneer work of
survivor analysts such as Judith and Milton Kestenberg, Milton Jucovy and Martin
Bergmann, to mention a f ew, have established a co nnection between their
persecutions and their symptoms, and several therapists have even indicated how
traumatization might be carried through generations through a sort of unconscious
repetition principle.
After the Shoah, as Bohleber states: the trauma theory that had been common
up to then proved to be unsuitable to grasp the specific symptoms and the
experience of the survivors. 9 It was not possible to use Freuds stimulus barrier
concept or other known theories: the experiences of the survivors called for a
change in the theorization itself, or a s pecial effort in understanding. When the
traumatization cannot be totally processed, the traumatization is carried through the
lives of the children and the next generations, in a play between reality and fantasy
(meaning, in this case, that even though the second generation did not face the
reality of trauma it has lived through it in fantasy or better in psychological effects
transferred between the generations, what Judith Kestenberg has called
transposition of symptoms and Ilany Kogan has termed concretization).
Emotional numbing, inability to mourn, which ends in depression or melancholia,
passivity and a masochistic life-style seem to be the major symptoms that are likely
to be passed on.
In the work with survivors a reconstruction of the reality of the event has
therefore become fundamental not only for the recovery of truth in the first
generation, but for the future generations. Not only the reconstruction of the details
of the traumatic events are fundamental for the victim itself, but the careful
reconstruction of truth that is possible only at a certain stage of the therapy has an
impact on society at large, reconstructs a p iece of history that was lost.
Reconstructing the truth as carefully as possible is the only way to avoid the
compulsion to repeat through generations and therefore the devastating effects of
the death principle at work.
Further work on this aspect of trauma theory has been carried out by Dori Laub,
a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who has survived a labour camp in Romania at the
age of 5 and has worked with survivors and the following generations; he is also
the co-founder of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at the
University of Yale, USA. What is recovered through psychotherapy or even
through a piece of testimony is a restoration of a missing piece of history for
humanity. What was lost in the traumatic experience is the trust in the other, in the
bond with the other human beings, which in part can be restored through the silent
__________________________________________________________________
participation of a listener, a psychotherapist or a witness to the testimony, who is
totally present and totally committed. Therefore, Laub concludes, what is needed
for healing is the creation of a testimonial community. 10
The same link between recuperation of the victim and reparation in society is
underlined by Judith Herman, the author of Trauma and Recovery; with Herman I
would stress that remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are
prerequisites for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of the
individual victims. 11
Therefore, even the psychotherapeutic work carried out with the victim in the
narrow space of the therapy room may assume a fundamental testimonial value
which might end up with a form of healing and reparation of the community at
large, restoring pieces of truth that belong to the entire social and historical body.
Notes
1
S. Freud, The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess 1887-1904,
J.M. Masson (ed), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1985, p. 266.
2
S. Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (Part III), Hogarth Press,
London, 1916, p. 368.
3
See S. Ferenczi, Confusion of Tongues between Adults and the Child,
International journal of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 30, 1949, pp. 225-230.
4
See for instance B. Van der Kolk, Trauma and Memory, Traumatic Stress: The
Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body and Society, Guilford Press,
New York, 1996, pp. 279-302. See also C. Mucci, Il dolore estremo. Il trauma da
Freud alla Shoah, Borla, Roma, 2008.
5
A.N. Schore, Relational Trauma and the Developing Right Brain: The
Neurobiology of Broken Attachment Bonds, Relational Trauma in Infancy:
Psychoanalytic and Neuropsychological Contributions to Parent-Infant
Psychotherapy, 2010, p. 35.
6
P. Fonagy and M. Target, Perspectives on the Recovered Memory Debate,
Recovered Memories of Abuse: True or False? Karnca, London, 1997, pp. 183-
216.
7
W. Bohleber, Destructiveness, Intersubjectivity, and Trauma: The Identity Crisis
of Modern Psychoanalysis, Karnac, London, 2010, p. 109.
8
I. Grubrich-Simitis, Extreme Traumatization as Cumulatie Trauma:
Psychoanalytic Investigations of the Effects of Concentration Camp Experiences
on Survivors and Their Children. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, Vol. 36,
1981, pp. 415-450.
9
Bohleber, op. cit., p. 87.
10
D. Laub, From Speechlessness to Narrative: The Cases of Holocaust Historians
and of Psychiatrically Hospitalized Survivors, Literature and Medicine, Vol. 24,
No. 2, Fall 2005, pp. 253-265.
Clara Mucci 235
__________________________________________________________________
11
J.L. Herman, Trauma and Recovery, Basic Books, New York, 1992.
Bibliography
Bohleber, W., Destructiveness, Intersubjectivity, and Trauma: The Identity Crisis
of Modern Psychoanalysis. Karnac, London, 2010.
Fonagy, P. and Target M., Perspectives on the Recovered memory Debate.

Recovered Memories of Abuse: True or False? Karnac, London, 1997.
Ferenczi, S., Confusion of Tongues between Adults and the Child. International
Journal of Psychoanalysis. Vol. 30, 1949, pp. 225-230.
Freud, S., Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (Part III). Hogarth Press,

London, 1916.
, Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Hogarth Press, London, 1920.
, Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety. Hogarth Press, London, 1926.
, The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess 1887-1904. Harvard

University Press, Cambridge, 1985.
Grubrich-Simitis, I., Extreme Traumatization as Cumulatie Trauma:

Psychoanalytic Investigations of the Effects of Concentration Camp Experiences
on Survivors and Their Children. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child. Vol. 36,
1981, pp. 415-450.
Herman, J.L., Trauma and Recovery. Basic Books, New York, 1992.
Laub, D., From Speechlessness to Narrative: The Cases of Holocaust Historians

and of Psychiatrically Hospitalized Survivors. Literature and Medicine. Vol. 24,
No. 2, Fall 2005, pp. 253-265.
Mucci, C., Il dolore estremo. Il trauma da Freud alla Shoah. Borla, Roma, 2008.
Schore, A.N., Relational Trauma and the Developing Right Brain: The
Neurobiology of Broken Attachment Bonds. Relational Trauma in Infancy:
Psychoanalytic and Neuropsychological Contributions to Parent-infant
Psychotherapy, 2010.
__________________________________________________________________
Van der Kolk, B.,Trauma and Memory. Traumatic Stress: The Effects of
Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body and Society. Guilford Press, New York,
1996.
Clara Mucci, PhD., Emory University, Atlanta, USA, and Dottore di Ricerca,
University of Genoa, Italy, is Full Professor of English Literature and English
Renaissance Drama at the University of Chiety, Italy, where she also teaches
Clinical Psychology. A clinical psychologist trained psychoanalytically, in private
practice in Pescara and Milan, she specialized in Borderline Disorders at the
Personality Disorder Institute of New York, directed by Otto Kernberg. She is the
author of six monographies on Shakespearean Drama, Womens Literature,
Psychoanalysis and Trauma.
Touring the Traumascape: War Tours in Sarajevo
Patrick Naef
Abstract
If the link between war and tourism has already received considerable academic
and media attention, the spatial representation of war in the tourism sector is still
emerging in the fields of cultural geography and anthropology. In this chapter I
seek to explore the reconversion and touristification of sites traumatised by war -
which I have approached using the concept of Traumascape - by presenting a case
study in the Balkan region, Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. This city
lived through a terrible and traumatic siege during the Balkan war of the 1990s and
is now undergoing a process of post-conflict reconstruction. Tourists are now
coming back to the region and many are eager to visit the war heritage left by the
conflict. So-called war tours, leading tourists through war-affected areas, are
appearing in the town: the Times of Misfortune Tour and the Mission Impossible
Tour. The touristification of these sites and of the Balkan war in general raises
many questions in terms of the representation and interpretation of a collective and
recent trauma: why are certain sites touristified and others not? Can tourism
foster cooperation and reconciliation between divided communities? Can tourism
be a vector of expression for silent or peripheral voices? What is the relationship
between these sites and those who visit them?
Key Words: Heritage, tourism, war, memorabilia, Balkan, Sarajevo, dark tourism,
trauma, traumascape.
*****
1. Introduction
This chapter will explore a case study taking place in a city characterized by the
siege it lived through during what was commonly named as the Balkan war in the
nineties. It will present the way some sites closely connected to this war are
reconverted, with a particular focus on their touristification. Indeed, Sarajevo, the
capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, is now exposing sites specifically linked to the war
to tourists through what is labelled as war tours. On one hand, the tourism office
proposes the Times of Misfortune Tour (Figure 1) and on the other hand, a private
guide introduced the war torn heritage of the city through a tour called the Mission
Impossible Tour. For a good comprehension of the following text, it is important to
first clarify the concept of traumascape in order to illuminate its transformation
into a touristscape. Furthermore now that tourists - local and foreign - come back
to visit the region and the stigmata of war, the reconversion and the touristification
of those traumascapes raise a number of questions in terms of the interpretation
and representation of a collective trauma, but also regarding economic and
238 Touring the Traumascape
__________________________________________________________________
territorial development, and even reconciliation and social cohesion: Why are some
sites rehabilitated and others not? Can tourism foster reconciliation between
divided communities? Can tourism be a vector of expression for silent voices? Or
on the opposite side, could the touristification of traumatic elements aim to serve
the powers in place? Finally, while situating a trauma like war in an industry close
to leisure, dont we risk disconnecting it from its traumatic history?
Figure 1: Advertising for the Time of Misfortune Tour.

(Tourism Board of Sarajevo)
2. From Traumascape to Touristscape

Before taking a close look at the touristification of sites traumatized by war it is
important to explore the notion of traumascape, which Maria Tumarkin defines as
a distinct category of places transformed physically and psychically by a trauma:
[] traumascapes become much more than physical settings of tragedies: They
emerge as spaces where events are experienced and re-experienced across time. 1
A trauma, which can be linked to war, natural disaster or even a terrorist attack, is
not only embodied in the place and the event, but in the way this place and event
are lived, experienced and represented through time. In this context tourism can
become a vector of experience and interpretation of the trauma and the place it is
associated with. Sarajevo is even part of the seven cases that Tumarkin uses as
Patrick Naef 239
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examples to illustrate her concept of traumascape in her founding book. Ive
chosen to identify some landmarks of this traumascape that is Sarajevo. The city is
now under a process of post-war reconstruction and tourism is developing
moderately. Foreign visitors have come back to Bosnia-Herzegovina in a
significant way since 2005 and Sarajevo is the main destination in the country. The
possibility is given for tourists to follow guided tours through the city focusing on
the war heritage of the place. Those tours are sometimes presented as historical or
memorial tours and sometimes also referred to as war tours. In the next part of
this chapter, a closer look is going to be taken at the way some of those war sites
are presented and interpreted.
You see smiling people, nice dresses happy foreigners. Its good But now
you are going to see the bad side of Sarajevo. Places that are not in the map. Places
that are not recommended. Places that are covered. 2 Those are the words that the
private tour guide Zijad Jusufovic uses to introduce me to the visit that is going to
lead me through the ruins of the last war. In Sarajevo, different tours are offered to
visitors willing to see landmarks related to the war. The Times of Misfortune tour is
organized by the Sarajevo tourism office and proposes, after a b rief city centre
sightseeing in a minibus, to visit whats called the Tunnel of Hope (Figure 2). This
tunnel was the only connection between the besieged city and the external world
during the war. Since it got abandoned by the Bosnian army at the end of the war,
its now a museum run privately by the family Kollar who owns the house where
the entry is situated. Existing for 15 years without any governmental support, this
place is becoming the most visited site of the Bosnian capital, experiencing
hundreds of daily visitors.
Figure 2: Entrance of the Tunnel of Hope. (By the author, 2010)
The official tours organized by the tourism office are generally guided by
students, who were often in asylum during the war and now have the advantage of
speaking foreign languages, even though most of them didnt live through the siege
__________________________________________________________________
of the nineties. Those tours are now very popular and one of the guides hired by
Sarajevo tourism office, also leading other type of tours, even states that: the
Times of Misfortune tour is the most demanded of our tours with the Historical
tour. 3 On an another hand, the Mission Impossible tour is independently organized
by Zijad Jusufovic, a former fixer who used to guide and help humanitarians and
UN soldiers during the war. This guide proposes a more complete panorama of
sites, including, among others, the old bobsleigh track shelled during the war, the
ruins of the anti-fascist monument, the burnt down library and what he calls the
Mujahidin Market next to the Kralj Fahd Damija (King Fahd Mosque). This
guide presents himself as the first legitimate post-war guide and insists on the
impartiality and the veracity of his discourse, and on the uniqueness of his
presentation. He frequently points out his experience of the war and the large work
of post-war inquiries he led the last ten years. He doesnt hesitate to question
tourist office guides information, employing a certain liberty of speech unavailable,
in comparison, to other less independent actors, saying for instance that they
wouldnt talk about black market or the existing idea of the construction of a
second tunnel during the war. In his opinion, Young guides, especially those
speaking foreign language, werent here during the siege, there is a lot of things
they cant know.
3. Private Memorials for Silent Voices?

The city of Sarajevo is experiencing a social and political dislocation and the
freezing of numerous reconstruction and renovation projects. The antifascist
monument could be a good illustration of this process. This landmark was edified
by Tito after the second war and destroyed in the nineties. Before this last war it
was well known as a p lace for school visits as well as a venue for official
ceremonies. After the Dayton agreements, a b order dividing the two entities was
established, crossing the ruins of the monument with the purpose of sharing the
place equally between the different communities. For Zijad Jusufovic this led to a
statu quo on every potential renovation project:
Dayton agreement put the border here, just to allow to give

chances to both sides if they wanted... It means if they
wantedNo problems! They could have the border 15 meters
away and it would have been only to Federation But no! They
wanted to give chances to both sides. [] And this is the
result Today here are the needles of the narco users, condoms
of the fuckers Mafia meeting, a safe place for narco dealers.
[] And now you cant find this place on any map. 4
It seems that the future of those sites is determined by many factors going
beyond the simple financial and technical criteria. The social and political aspects
Patrick Naef 241
__________________________________________________________________
related to this post-war context are crucial to understanding the dynamics guiding
the reconversion process of certain sites. Following those observations could we
introduce the idea that independent projects - or even familial ones - such as the
Tunnel of Hope or the private operator quoted, would be more inclined to overpass
those bureaucratic and politic barriers? Furthermore could those different projects
be seen as alternative vectors of expression for silent and marginal voices?
Tumarkin 5 describes The Tunnel of Hope not only as a private museum, but also as
a private memorial. This conceptualization has been partly confirmed by the
creator and owner of this museum and Zijad Jusufovic, who describes the creation
of the Museum:
The army just let him alone. And his house was damaged what
to do now? And he decided to establish a tunnel. Its five marks a
ticket you know He sells some things Ok! But this is
private. 6
Byro Kollar, the creator and owner, confirms that his museum is totally
private. He insists on his determination to avoid nationalistic influences from the
different communities and even adds, referring to the opening speech of the fifteen
anniversary of the construction of this museum:
I dont like everybody to talk about the tunnel. Some politicians

tried to use it for their own publicity. I will not allow politicians
to do the discourse; it will be one of the best students who will
read it. 7
In this context, could the Museum, and different initiatives presented be seen as
a challenge to the representation of the trauma by the powers in place? Following
this idea it would be interesting to introduce the notions of gentrification and
encirclement that Jenny Edkins assimilates to two different ways of managing a
trauma:
We cannot try to address the trauma directly without risking its

gentrification [] Memory and forgetting are crucial, both in
contesting the depoliticisation that goes under the name of
politics, and in keeping open a s pace for a g enuine political
challenge by encircling the trauma rather than attempting to
gentrify it. 8
On another hand, the touristification of traumatized sites raises the question of

their trivialization and historical detachment as stated by Christina Schwenkel on
Vietnam: Despite government efforts to retain its historical and commemorative
__________________________________________________________________
significance, Vietnamese youth, in particular, have transformed the Cu Chi
Tunnels into a site of entertainment that is largely detached from the war. 9
Through her study on the Vietnam War memorialization she assumes that the way
the Cu Chi Tunnels site is experienced, especially for the Vietnamese youth,
generates anti-memorial functions which suggest a detachment from the traumatic
History of Vietnam. Finally, the question about the status of those sites, between
museums and memorials, should be raised as Paul Williams does in his book on
memorial museums. Williams demonstrates that the traditional difference between
memorials and museums is often blurred, even though:
A memorial is seen to be, if not apolitical, at least safe in the

refuge of history. [] A historical museum, by contrast, is
presumed to be concerned with interpretation, contextualization,
and critique. 10
4. Conclusion: War, Trauma and Tourism

In the current literature the link between war and tourism has already been
illustrated by numerous authors. Derek Hall states that: Sites associated with war
and conflict become particularly popular. 11 Valene Smith even introduces the idea
that: memorabilia of warfare and allied products constitute the largest single
category of tourist attractions in the world. 12 The touristification of sites related to
war are generally problematized through the notion of dark tourism (Stone 2006,
Lennon & Foley, 2000) or even thanatourism (Seaton, 1996), the same way as sites
linked to natural disasters or terrorism attacks. Such research is often produced in
the fields of hospitality management and marketing. Most of them are limited to
quantitative analyses leading to results presented through rigid typologies
disconnected from reality. Philip Stone 13 for instance intends to point out the
different shades of darkness a site can take on, in a spectrum going from the
lightest to the darkest. Following his idea Auschwitz would be darker than the
Museum of Holocaust in Washington DC, as the latter is more disconnected from
the Second World War genocide. He defines different categories on this spectrum
depending on dimensions such as education, authenticity, leisure, location,
chronological distance or even the degree of touristification. I would state that we
need a more comprehensive approach with more qualitative and interdisciplinary
methods to build a reflection which goes far beyond the tourism sector. Paul
Williams remarks on the complexity of differentiating memorials and museums,
illustrating, in my opinion, the ambiguities that exist in trying to situate sites like,
for instance, the Tunnel of Hope in well-defined categories. Finally, some authors
introduce the notion of political tourism illustrating it among others by the case of
Northern Ireland (Simone-Charteris, Boyd, 2010) where some tours are organized
by ex-prisoners of the two communities (republicans and loyalists) and where the
ideologically oriented interpretation of the conflict is assumed and promoted. The
Patrick Naef 243
__________________________________________________________________
authors are exploring the way this political form of tourism, often advertised
under the wider umbrella of cultural and heritage tourism, 14 can have the
potential to succeed in reducing tensions and mistrust, or on the opposite side,
could strengthen existing misconceptions and stereotypes. As we can see the
relation between tourism and war, and trauma in general, is multifaceted and a
tourism management approach isnt sufficient to fully understand its complexity.
In this context, interdisciplinary methods seem more than indispensable to
construct a productive reflection.
Notes
1
M. Tumarkin, Traumascapes: The Power and Fate of Places Transformed by
Tragedy, Melbourne University Press, Victoria, 2005, p. 12.
2
Personal interview conducted in Sarajevo on July 2010.
3
The Historical Tour is proposed among others by the tourism office of Sarajevo
and leads visitors around the main historical landmarks of the city.
4
Personal interview conducted in Sarajevo in July 2010.
5
M. Tumarkin, 2005, p. 208.
6
Personal interview, 2010.
7
Ibid.
8
J. Edkins, Trauma and the Memory of Politics, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 2003, p. 15.
9
C. Schwenkel, The American War in Contemporary Vietnam: Transnational
Remembrance and Representation, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2009,
p. 97.
10
P. Williams, Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities,
Berg, Oxford / New York, 2007, p. 8.
11
D. Hall, Tourism and Welfare: Ethics, Responsibility, and Sustained Well-Being,
Cabi, Oxfordshire, 2006, p. 69.
12
V. Smith, War and Tourism: An American Ethnography, Annals of Tourism
Research, 2007, p. 205.
13
P. Stone, A Dark Tourism Spectrum: Towards a Typology of Death and
Macabre Related Tourists and Sites, Attraction and Exhibitions, Tourism: An
Interdisciplinary International Journal, Vol. 52, 2006, p. 151.
14
M.T. Simone-Charteris and S.W. Boyd, Northern Ireland Re-Emerges from the
Ashes: The Contribution of Political Tourism towards a More Visited and Peaceful
Environment, Tourism, Progress and Peace, O. Moufakkir and I. Kelly (eds),
Cabi, Oxfordshire, 2010, p. 187.
__________________________________________________________________
Bibliography
Ashworth G., In Search of Place-Identity Dividend: Using Heritage Landscapes to
create Place Identity. Sense of Place, Health and Quality of Life. Eyles J. et al.
(eds), Ashgates Geographies of Health Series, Canada, 2007.
Edkins J., Trauma and the Memory of Politics. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 2003.
Hall D., Tourism and Welfare: Ethics, Responsibility, and Sustained Well-Being.
Cabi, Oxfordshire, 2006.
Lennon J. and Foley M., Dark Tourism: The Attraction of Death and Disaster.
Continuum, London / New York, 2000.
Schwenkel C., The American War in Contemporary Vietnam: Transnational

Remembrance and Representation. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2009.
Seaton, T., Guided by the Dark: From Thanatopsis to Thanatourism.

International Journal of Heritage Studies. 1996, pp. 234-244.
Simone-Charteris M.T. and Boyd S.W., Northern Ireland Re-Emerges from the
Ashes: The Contribution of Political Tourism towards a More Visited and Peaceful
Environment. Tourism, Progress and Peace. Moufakkir, O. and Kelly, I. (eds),
Cabi, Oxfordshire, 2010, pp.179-198.
Stone P., A Dark Tourism Spectrum: Towards a Typology of Death and Macabre
Related Tourists and Sites, Attraction and Exhibitions. Tourism: An
Interdisciplinary International Journal. Vol. 52, 2006.
Tumarkin M., Traumascapes: The Power and Fate of Places Transformed by

Tragedy. Melbourne University Press, Victoria, 2005.
Williams P., Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities.

Berg, Oxford / New York, 2007.
Patrick Naef is a P hD candidate and a t eaching assistant at the Environmental

Sciences Institute, University of Geneva. After graduating in anthropology, hes
now realizing a thesis in cultural geography on heritage reconversion and tourism
development in Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina.
Persistence and Transformation of Cultural Trauma:
Commemoration of Soviet Deportations in the Media of Post-
Soviet Latvia (1987-2010)
Olga Procevska, Mrti Kaprns and Laura Uzule

Abstract
An essential part of the political strategy of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was the
extermination of social groups that he regarded as the enemies of the people:
owners of the capital and land, counterrevolutionaries, and opponents of Soviet
ideology and collectivisation. Thus on June 14th 1941 and March 25th 1949 the
population of Latvia diminished by 60 t housand people overnight. Soviet
authorities labelled them as dangerous for socialism and deported them to various
destinations in Siberia with no hope of return. Memories of them were unspeakable
in the public sphere until perestroika, but since then it has become as principal a
source of cultural trauma for Latvians as September 11th is for Americans and the
Holocaust is for Jews. During the decline of the Soviet Union, the commemoration
of Soviet crimes became an important social practice in Latvia and elsewhere in
post-communist societies. A crucial role in this process was played by Latvian
mass media: since perestroika the media have been forming the public discourse of
the commemoration and thereby also of the trauma of the deportations.
By analysing the content of the most read national and local newspapers Latvia
issued in the last 23 years, this extensive study offers an overview of the creation
and transformation of mediated trauma.
Key Words: Trauma, representation, commemoration, deportations, Soviet, post-

Soviet, Latvia.
*****
The tradition of public commemoration of deportations began in the period of

Atmoda (a specific Latvian term for national revival, 1987-1991), when previously
silenced historical episodes became a p art of everyday political communication.
The media participated in this process not only as informers, but also as agitators
and influencers of the public opinion.
The democratisation of history and sharing information about the traumatic
events became so widespread that it created a new type of public communication
and brought to the public sphere new ideas and feelings, as the sociologist Talis
Tisenkopfs pointed out several years after perestroika. 1 The traumatic experience
of deportations represented in the media dissolved the previous conception of
soviet history and became an important part of the new, post-soviet history and
identity.
246 Persistence and Transformation of Cultural Trauma
__________________________________________________________________
The first occurrence of the public commemoration of deportations took place in
June 14, 1987 when the civil rights movement Helsinki-86 laid flowers in the front
of the Monument of Freedom in Riga and were roundly or rudely roughly
condemned by the authorities and the media. 2 In 1988, the situation was
completely different - the Communist Party of Latvia officially permitted the
commemoration of the deportations. 3 The official legitimization, albeit completed
only in 1990, enabled the press to come up with an openly supportive position
towards the commemorative activities.
1. Creating Patterns of Commemoration

The highest activity in terms of the total number of publications representing
commemorative events was reached in 1989. 4 Until 1989 national media
dominates, but later the number of publications in national media significantly
decreases, while the local media continue to produce a growing or stable number of
publications in following years. This asymmetry can be explained by two
interrelated factors. First, the national press established and legitimated the
discourse of commemoration that made its localization possible and at the same
time diminished the necessity to sustain it o n the national scale. Second, in the
beginning of the 1990s the economic issues downplayed the importance of history
and cultural struggles in the agenda of the national media, while commemorative
events remained notable for local communities and thus also for the local media.
Typically, the commemoration is represented through news pieces, reportages
or short, mobilizing messages listing the time and venue of the commemorative
activities. During the Atmoda period, publications, both in texts and pictures, focus
on several aspects: monuments, mass gatherings and also musical and sacral
components of the commemoration. National newspapers tend to emphasize
political actions such as demonstrations and speeches, whereas local media give
more attention to the religious, emotional and aesthetic aspects, such as worship,
songs, poetry and memories, accentuating the individual experiences of the
deportees and the involvement of the local community. 5 However, commemorative
events in both types of media during Atmoda are represented as being oriented
towards immediate emotional experience rather than to the cognitivization of the
past, more characteristic of the next decade. Thus emotional music, flowers, tears
in the eyes of people and their feeling of respectfulness are common characteristics
of the commemorative representation. Journalists also use a v ery appealing and
emotional style of reporting:
At noon of June 14 the stirring sounds of the church-bell

introduced the event, dedicated to the victims of Stalins cult of
personality. This bell has been silent for a long time, but our
memory and our consciousness were kept silent even longer. [..]
Olga Procevska, Mrti Kaprns and Laura Uzule 247
__________________________________________________________________
The remembrance is fragile. Fragile as a trembling light of
candles in the breeze of the shore of Daugava River. 6
There is a rather high level of homogenization and politization of

commemorative discourse in the period of Atmoda: the most quoted persons are
public officials, with the voices of deportees heard in the press only in half as many
cases (14% and 8% respectively). Thus the witnesses of the historical events are
ignored by the press (especially by the national press) in favour of the actors
representing the political discourse.
A characteristic feature of the commemorative discourse during Atmoda is the
generalization of suffering, i.e. no specific ethnic or social identities are assigned to
the victims of deportations. Unlike the portrayal of the victims, the key perpetrator
is more concrete: Stalin. At the beginning of Atmoda, Stalins crimes were framed
as an anomaly, not an organic element of the Soviet system, but at the end of
Atmoda blaming Stalin (or the cult of personality as it is commonly referred to in
the press) transforms into accusations of the whole soviet system:
Stalin should not be the only one to blame: his party, the
Communist party, is guilty for that bloodshed, for the
extermination of millions of honourable people. 7
Yet, it must be noted that during Atmoda the press does not focus on finding
and punishing the villains (the perpetrators are mentioned only in 20% of
publications), rather it is tended at representing the collective, all-embracing
empathy.
During Atmoda the press published not only news and features, but also a lot of
memoirs, interviews with the deportees, analytical pieces on history of that time,
governmental resolutions, and lists with the names of the deportees. Other
documents were published, such as prose and poetry devoted to the remembrance
of the victims of deportations, which provided a contextual field wherein the
commemorative events could be located and understood. 8 They also inspired
people to engage in commemorative activities, as the analysis shows: 85% of the
contextual publications were issued before the particular event and only 15% after.
Remembering and condemning deportations became a political matter during
Atmoda. Namely, talking about deportations inevitably converted into the
discourse on the Soviet occupation in 1940, demands of autonomy and
independence, and free speech and civil rights under the Soviet rule. At that time
the media acted as mobilizing forces of commemoration: they intensively informed
about upcoming local and nationwide commemorative events and contextualized
these activities by printing life stories, analysis, adding personal interpretation and
sentiment and also by stressing their cultural and political significance. Using
particular genres, metaphors, emotional style, and popular spokespersons the press
__________________________________________________________________
established a p attern of mediating the trauma that influenced the commemorative
representation in the next 20 years.
A distinctive tendency of the Atmoda period was to avoid accentuating the
suffering of a single social stratum or ethnic group and to stay away from searching
for villains. Instead, the media focused on shared feelings, emphasized the
common rather than controversial issues, and thus created the potential for
reconciliation between different groups and the healing of cultural trauma.
However, in following years the disunion emerged between the representation of
these events in the media of the two main ethnic communities of Latvia: Latvians
and Russians.
2. The Decade of Continuity and Transformation

Although since 1991 t he commemoration of deportations may have partially
lost the political appeal it h ad during Atmoda, commemorative events are still a
salient topic in the media agenda and more than a h alf of all commemorative
publications are still to be found on the first and second pages of the newspapers. 9
The dynamics of publications representing the commemorative events is not
steady, but has four visible peaks. Two of them are connected to the anniversaries
of the deportations, but the other two are more politically interesting. In 1999 the
commemoration of deportations is under the influence of the events of the previous
year when for the first time on a significant scale the former members of the
Latvian Legion of the Nazi army publicly commemorated their fallen brethren. It
provoked a tide of indignation by the Russian authorities and the Russian press of
Latvia; and in waiting for a possible confrontation the deportations received greater
media attention in 1999. For its part, in 2006 the attention of the media was caught
by an accident at the Monument of Freedom, an icon of commemorative events
that is situated at the very center of Riga. That year, on March 25, the municipality
of Riga had decided to start reconstruction works on the monument, so an
enclosure was set up and access to the monument was limited. Since many
participants were upset by this fact they expressed it during the commemorative
procession to the president of Latvia, Vaira Vike-Freiberga. Reacting to
accusations addressed towards her, Vike-Freiberga gestured in a way that insulted
the participants of the event. This incident became the top news story of the day.
Similarly to the Atmoda period, publications of subsequent years also focus on
such commemorative elements as monuments, mass gatherings, musical backdrop,
etc.. The analysis suggests that only in 19% of all commemorative publications
represent events that took place in the countryside, mainly at railway stations
(where the trains with the deportees once started their journeys) or special
memorial sites. Unlike national newspapers, the local press is dominated by the
voices of deportees, poems and prose, as well as the presence of clergy and sacral
components. For example:
__________________________________________________________________
Saxophone eases off sorrows, playing I sing for you, the
fatherland. [..] The anthem of Latvia sounds like a praying sung
by everyone. The hearts of participants were filled with songs,
which were sung by the choir Wenden after the commemorative
event. People discussed the past and present events, while
drinking tea. 10
The local newspapers do highlight constraints for the commemoration: they

emphasize the worries of deportees that after their death the horrors of the
deportations will be forgotten, because there are only a few young people present
at the commemoration events, which, in their opinion, increases the probability that
similar events can happen again in the future.
Great is a nation that remembers its history. Therefore I beg

grandparents to tell their grandchildren about their experience
and to take them to memorial sites. 11
The challenge for us, who've survived, is not to complain, but to

inform the nation and the world what happened here and to make
sure this does not happen again. 12
The national newspapers more often than regional press tend to write about
exhibitions, presentations of books or movie premieres, as well as conferences or
lectures dedicated to deportations, thus emphasizing the cognitive attitude to the
past. The most quoted persons in the publications of the 1990s and later are similar
to the Atmoda period: the majority of them are public officials. However, the post-
Atmoda media quotes deportees more often, increasing the diversity of voices and
the presence of primary sources (the carriers of direct experience of deportations).
Neither in the publications of Atmoda, nor in the post-Atmoda period, is there a
tendency to look for the perpetrators. From 374 c ommemorative publications,
registered in post-Atmoda period, only 45 articles mention any perpetrator: the
USSR or the Soviet Communist regime, Stalin or stalinism, the government, the
Russians and the Soviet secret police. It is important to take into account that
unlike in Atmoda, the media do accentuate ethnic Latvians as the major victims of
deportations. This applies typically to the Latvian language media, while the
Russian media of Latvia repeatedly tend to emphasize that members of other
ethnicities suffered from deportations too. The discussion about the possibility to
regard deportations as genocide against Latvians is one of the most persistent
themes in the press 20 years after Atmoda. These divergent approaches illuminate
problems the people of Latvia face constituting political nation.
While the representation of remembering deportations during Atmoda is
characterized by its consensual nature, in the next two decades the conflict and
__________________________________________________________________
confrontation is regularly present at the events and in the media. Commemoration
of deportations is used to discuss the complicated Latvia-Russia relations, which
often leads to nationalistic statements on the one side and feelings of resentment on
the other. The Russian press of Latvia tends to identify with the position of Russia
and is offended by what it regards as attempts to nationalize sufferings. Therefore
Russian press is more sensitive to ideological conflicts that occur in the
commemoration of deportations.
The 23 year long history of commemoration of the Soviet deportations of 1941
and 1949 demonstrates several important tendencies in the process of dealing with
trauma, although albeit these tendencies are controversial. First, there is a t rend
towards lesser consensus and more conflict around the remembrance of
deportations. Second, there is a persistent tendency towards an empathetic and not
a villain-seeking representation of deportations. Third, the diversity of
commemoration and its representation in the media increases over time.
Considered together, these tendencies may indicate that the commemoration of
deportations is still in transition: a particular tradition of representation has formed,
though it is still flexible, responding to changes in the social and political context.
Yet we suggest that there is still a great potential for using deportations as a
symbolic resource that both helps to retreat from cultural trauma and to reconcile
different mnemonic communities.
Notes
1
T. Tisenkopfs, Dzve un teksts: biogrfisk pieeja socilajs zintns, Latvijas
Zintu Akadmijas Vstis, Vol. 5(550), 1993, pp. 1-8.
2
Svtki uz riteiem, Padomju Jaunatne, June 1987; see also, M. Birznieks, Tas
mums jiegaum, Skolotju Avze, June 1987.
3
LATINFORM, Latvijas Komunistisks partijas Centrlaj komitej, Lauku
Avze, June 1988.
4
The research sample to explore the specific characteristics of media
representations of the commemoration of deportations during Atmoda included 9
national newspapers (2 of them writing in Russian) and 12 local newspapers. In
total, 185 publications (including pictures), directly concerning the
commemorative activities (ad hoc we will be calling them commemorative
publications) and 448 contextual publications were studied. In order to indicate the
most important components of commemorative rituals and to observe the voices of
publications and the role of deportees, we compelled the commemorative
publications to content analysis. The contextual publications were analysed
thematically, outlining their themes, discourses, genres and authorship.
5
See, for example, J. Vistia, Draugi, bri tlum!, Jelgavas Ziotjs, June
1989; see also, S. Klince, Atmiu rtdienai, Padomju Druva, June 1988.
6
J. Zemdegs, Piemiai dzvot..., Komunisma Uzvara, June 1988.
__________________________________________________________________
7
M. Magone, Msu piemias akmei. Darba Karogs, June 1991.
8
Besides 185 publications representing the commemorative activities of Atmoda,
we have studied 448 publications that outline the context of commemoration, but
do not report directly on the events.
9
To investigate the development of the commemorative tradition originating in
Atmoda in subsequent years, we analyzed three major national Latvian-language
newspapers and three Russian national newspapers. In addition, to ensure the
broadest possible regional coverage, four local newspapers were included. To
observe the transformations of the commemorative representation, the publications
during nine years (1995, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2007 and 2010) were studied.
10
S. Feldmane, Vstures atbalsis odien, Druva, March 2010.
11
V. Rozenberga, Tautas spju dienas atceroties, Druva, June 2010.
12
N. Drie, Klusuma brdis, lgana un dziesmas aizvesto piemiai, Kurzemes
Vrds, June 2010.
Bibliography
Alexander, J.C., Eyerman, R., Giesen, B., Smelser, N.J. and Sztompka, P., Cultural
Trauma and Collective Identity. University of California Press, Berkeley, Los
Angeles, London, 2004.
Bell, D. (ed), Memory, Trauma and World Politics: Reflections on the Relationship
between Past and Present. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2010.
Birznieks, M., Tas mums jiegaum. Skolotju Avze. June 1987.
Drie, N., Klusuma brdis, lgana un dziesmas aizvesto piemiai. Kurzemes

Vrds. June 2010.
Feldmane, S., Vstures atbalsis odien. Druva. March 2010.
Halbwachs, M., On Collective Memory. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago,

London, 1992.
Hunt, N.C., Memory, War and Trauma. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
2010.
Klince, S., Atmiu rtdienai. Padomju Druva. June 1988.
LATINFORM, Latvijas Komunistisks partijas Centrlaj komitej. Lauku Avze.

June 1988.
__________________________________________________________________
Vistia, J., Draugi, bri tlum!. Jelgavas Ziotjs. June 1989.
Magone, M., Msu piemias akmei. Darba Karogs. June 1991.
Mithander, T., Sundholm, J. and Troj Holmgren, M. (eds), Collective Traumas:

Memories of War and Conflict in 20th-Century Europe. Bruxelles [u.c.], P. I. E.
Peter Lang, 2007.
Rozenberga, V., Tautas spju dienas atceroties. Druva. June 2010.
Sztompka, P., Cultural Trauma: The Other Face of Social Change. European
Journal of Social Theory. Vol. 3(4), 2000, pp. 449-466.
Tisenkopfs, T., Dzve un teksts: biogrfisk pieeja socilajs zintns. Latvijas

Zintu Akadmijas Vstis. Vol. 5(550), 1993, pp. 1-8.
Zemdegs, J., Piemiai dzvot.... Komunisma Uzvara. June 1988.
Olga Procevska is a P hD candidate and researcher at the Department of

Communication Studies at the University of Latvia. Her research interests focus on
history and sociology of intellectuals and, specifically, on pos t-socialist
intelligentsia, but also include Soviet popular culture, cultural memory studies,
metaphors and cognition.
Mrti Kaprns is a PhD candidate and researcher at the Department of

Communication Studies at the University of Latvia. His research interests include
autobiographical communication and popular culture studies, social memory and
identity.
Laura Uzule is a PhD candidate and researcher at the Department of

Communication Studies at the University of Latvia. Her research interests are local
media, self-identity of journalists, gender studies, national identity, social memory
and commemoration.
Finding a Voice
Sue Robinson
Abstract
Finding a Voice is a workshop approach that explores how adults and children may
come together to think of ways to overcome traumatic situations. It uses ideas
originally developed by Tom Andersen about reflecting conversations to extend
dialogues and conversations in ways which permit more careful listening and
enhances the opportunities for those present to find the language to vocalise
underlying feelings, thoughts and ideas.
Key Words: Young people, violence, trauma, dialogue, reflection, group process,
listening, discourse, language.
*****
1. Introduction
Finding a Voice is a workshop approach that was developed to help young
people through the traumatic aftermath of a murder, and to assist them to find
their voices again. It was designed to be as participatory as possible. In Prague a
Finding A Voice workshop was run as an experiential session, giving conference
participants a taste of the experience. Consideration was given to whether the
approach fits with classic fishbowl discussions and how the process is helpful in
traumatic situations. Some hypothesised that it creates a f ormal framework that
acts to contain, or hold a discussion of an inherently emotional subject. As such,
the underlying values of the model establish an inherent respect for other
participants.
The approach involves three reflecting conversations. A family therapist, Tom
Andersen, in Norway, developed the idea of a reflecting conversation. One of the
purposes of a reflecting conversation is to promote deep and careful listening,
thereby encouraging greater involvement by participants. The reflecting
conversation accomplishes this in several ways but one of the most important is the
careful attention to the spaces in the dialogue and the non-verbal or bodily aspects
of the communications.
2. Background
Tom Andersen was interested in the ways words were uttered and
communicated. He said:
The listener (the therapist) who follows the talker (the client), not
only hearing the words but seeing how the words are uttered, will
notice how every word is part of the moving body. Spoken words
254 Finding a Voice
__________________________________________________________________
and bodily activity come together in a u nity and cannot be
separated ... The listener who sees as much as he hears will
notice that various spoken words touch the speaker differently. 1
His thinking and clinical practice were fundamental in helping to evolve a

number of developments in therapeutic dialogues and the practice of reflecting
teams. As a result of his work, innovative ideas emerged such as the reflecting
team, reflecting process, reflecting conversation and dialogue and inner and
outer talks. A more detailed explanation of these terms can be found Andersens
Innovations in the Reflecting Process. 2
The ideas in Innovations in the Reflecting Process are inspirational and
exciting. Tom Andersen left an important legacy for work with trauma, attunement
and non-verbal communication. He appeared to have a wonderful capacity to instil
respect in the situations in which he worked and to facilitate innovative thinking in
other practitioners.
The reflecting circle can also be used in non-therapeutic environments. It is
particularly effective in situations where either there are strong prevailing power
relationships, where the culture is such that participants are prone to rush to
judgment, or where there is a high degree of uncertainty or ambiguity. For
example, it has been used in consultancy practice to help with cultural alignment in
a new organisation and to ensure that people who are hard to hear are listened to
by a public organisation.
Andersens ideas are evinced in the work of Garcia and Guevara in Argentina.
They used his language and ideas in several ways in their work in responding to
the traumatic legacy of the countrys military dictatorship (1976-83) and
subsequent failures to address issues of human rights and social justice in its
aftermath. Guevara and Garcia viewed their clinical practice as political practice
by thinking about the political context in Argentina and asking, how can we
contribute to the generation of further acceptance of difference and inclusion? 3
They explained the relationship between clinical and political practice as
follows:
We understand politics to mean the exercise of responsibility as

participants of social acts, based on its consequences. Deeming
language as meaning-making and constituting our world views as
generating our reality, and conceiving words as formative,
increases our responsibility as we use it. Changing language is
therefore changing the world. The language-thought-world
relationship is therefore a dialectical one. 4
The references to the work of Shotter and Freire, which are in the original
passage, indicate an important aspect of the approach. It enables the participants
Sue Robinson 255
__________________________________________________________________
through the use of language in a structured environment to have the possibility of
reframing the social construction of their world. Curry has summarised:
We make sense of the world through language. The

communicated world connects the world we observe with the
world we experience, and bridges our interior and exterior
worlds. Our construction of knowledge about the world is a
social process which goes on within groups, through the agency
of language. 5
Some of these ideas were applied in thinking how to respond to the violent
death of a young person in London. Help was requested after a 15-year old boy
was stabbed to death in March 2010, during rush hour at a mainline London
station. Knife crime among teenagers is a particular problem in London, with more
than a dozen deaths in the capital in 2010, although rates nationally for the UK are
among the lowest in Europe. In response to the killing, Sue Robinson and Helen
Mahaffey ran a series of Finding a Voice events.
3. The Finding a Voice Events in London

The first Finding a Voice event, held at a school, consisted of several reflecting
conversations between adults and young people. Afterwards a s econd event was
held in the youth offending service, and there were requests for further events.
Sue Robinson and Helen Mahaffey sought both to recognise the distress caused
by the violence, and to expand the opportunities for young people to find their
voices in ways that helped them to overcome such traumas. They also hoped to
furnish the young people with better skills to develop dialogues and narratives
about their feelings.
In the work by Guevara and Garcia, a letter was sent to professionals, parents
and young adults, inviting them to participate in a meeting that would use the
reflecting circles as the basis for dialogue.
In their meeting, the three reflecting conversations were held for 10 to 15
minutes each and participants were grouped into two circles. The inner circle
included the young people and they spoke first. While they did this, the adults
present sat outside in a second circle and were permitted only to listen, not to speak
or respond. Then the adults had their turn to speak in a second conversation, which
reflected on the dialogue of the young people in the initial conversation. The third
and final conversation involved the children, in turn, reflecting on what the adults
had said, again without interruption by the adults.
In London, a broadly similar workshop method was used, although for cultural
and organisational reasons we modified the preparatory work. We found that in
practice we needed to adapt our facilitation approach during the actual workshops.
The preparatory work for the London events was crucial and warrants a substantial
256 Finding a Voice
__________________________________________________________________
paper in itself that is in progress. But one of the unintended beneficial outcomes at
the London events was that people were involved as participants in a facilitated
conversation rather than as patients giving consent to treatment.
In Argentina, the participants moved from the outer to inner circle to do this. In
the London Finding a Voice events, participants chose to stay in their original
positions without changing from inner to outer circle. This did not, however,
disrupt the underlying procedural and structural rules of the event (that young
people initially spoke while adults listened, and so on).
Understanding the reasons behind the different elements of the event described
in Argentina by Guevara and Garcia and the Finding a Voice events in London
seemed a helpful way to develop our ideas (which we are now doing in a variety of
ways) and further work is being undertaken by Helen Mahaffey with some of the
children and families. The workshop session at the Trauma: Theory and Practice
conference provided a v aluable opportunity to explore these ideas with a cross-
disciplinary group of interested practitioners and participants.
4. The Reflecting Conversation in Prague

At the event in Prague, Sue Robinson and Andrew Curry sought to give
participants an experience of the reflecting conversation, rather than simply present
the work. After a short introduction, the participants were invited to arrange
themselves in the two (inner and outer) circles. The question we asked the group to
start the conversation was as follows:
Reflecting on the presentations we have just heard [by Catherine

Barrette and Clara Mucci], and other material presented at the
conference, what questions could we ask ourselves about the
links between our private and public experiences of trauma?
As with the sessions in the Finding A Voice events in London, we had the inner
circle start, and the outer circle listen; in the second cycle of conversation, the outer
circle spoke, and the inner circle listened; and finally the inner circle had power of
voice for a third cycle. (There are other ways to manage the circles). 6
Despite the relatively tight time constraints, the conversation worked at both
process and content levels, to judge both from the questions that followed both
within the session and informally afterwards. In terms of the content, a number of
themes emerged:
The relationship between personal and public trauma.

Perhaps paradoxically, as one participant observed, all
trauma is personal, but it is never just a private trauma;
trauma is both private and public.
Sue Robinson 257
__________________________________________________________________
It takes time to transfer the experience of the trauma into the
public sphere. The idea of generational time, which
surfaced in the conversation, was one of the running themes
of the conference as a whole. Our discussion built on Clara
Muccis chapter to suggest that this involves the
reconstruction of truth as part of the process of rebuilding
social bonds.
One immediate response to trauma is hyper-vigilance; it takes
time to reframe this as an experience. One speaker linked it to
other material presented at the conference about spiritual as
distinct from religious experience and the possible role of the
collective unconscious in relation to this.
The role of the artist in meaning making, a theme which
emerged in the conversation as a r esponse to Catherine
Barrettes challenging images. Great art, it was suggested,
comes from trauma, and possibly, that great artists are
traumatised. But artists, it was argued, had a responsibility to
look and listen, and a responsibility to produce.
Reflecting on this conversation after the conference, it was evident that many of
the points that emerged during the session would not have been raised in a
conventional question and answer format. For example, consideration was given to
the ways trauma should be exposed in relation to Catherines chapter.
Some participants also said that they had experienced Andersens unity of
spoken words and bodily activity, which he regarded as an integral part of the
experience of the reflecting conversation. One example was an intense sense -
expressed by someone in the inner circle - of her words being heard by those
around her as she spoke.
In the short time available to us, several patterns also seen in longer
conversations were identifiable: a willingness to tolerate periods of silence;
attempts to break the circle as a participant tried to get a member of the other
circle to respond directly to a comment; the liberation of knowing that it is not
necessary to speak; and the sense that this freedom, in turn, created an intensity of
experience while in the listening circle.
In the discussion following the reflecting conversation, questions were raised
about the rationale for the model. The reflecting conversation is a special form of
dialogue, and as Daniel Yankelovich notes: Practitioners agree that in dialogue all
participants must be treated as equals. 7 The reflecting conversation deliberately
privileges the power of speech by enforcing silence upon the listeners, and by
rotating this privilege. In terms of recovering from trauma, of finding truth, of
building social bonds, of re-framing the power relationships that lay behind the
events of the trauma, these are essential tasks.
258 Finding a Voice
__________________________________________________________________
Notes
1
T. Andersen, Language is not Innocent, The Handbook of Relational Diagnosis,
F. Kaslow (ed), Wiley, New York/Oxford, 1996, pp. 119-125.
2
A. Anderson and P. Jensen (eds), Innovations in the Reflecting Process, Karnac,
London, 2007.
3
A.G. Garcia and L. Guevara, Voicing Voices, Innovations in the Reflecting
Process, A. Anderson and P. Jensen (eds), Karnac, London, 2007, pp. 58-74.
4
Ibid.
5
A. Curry, Acting on the Future, Scenarios for Success. B. Sharpe and K. van der
Heijden (eds), Wiley, Chichester, 2007.
6
In Tom Andersens original formulation and in the Garcia and Guevara
workshops, participants moved physically from the outer to the inner circles when
it was their turn to speak. This had been the original intention in the Finding A
Voice events in London, but the young people in the inner circle declined to move.
A further model, sometimes used by Co-intelligence practitioners http://www.co-
intelligence.org/y2k_fishbowl.html leaves one or more chairs empty in the inner
circle, and allows participants to move to these when they wish to speak in the
conversation. In this model, similarly, people in the inner circle who feel they have
contributed sufficiently to the conversation may move when they so choose to the
outer circle to listen.
7
D. Yankelovich, The Magic of Dialogue, Nicholas Brealey, London, 2001.
Bibliography
Andersen, T., Language is not Innocent. The Handbook of Relational Diagnosis.
Kaslow, F. (ed), Wiley, New York/Oxford, 1996.
Anderson, A. and Jensen, P. (eds) Innovations in the Reflecting Process. Karnac.

London, 2007.
Curry, A., Acting on the Future. Scenarios for Success. Sharpe, B. and van der
Heijden, K. (eds), Wiley, Chichester, 2007.
Freire, P., Pedagogia da automnia, Siglo vientunio editores, Buenos Aires, 1997.
Cited in Garcia and Guevara, 2007. [Translated into English as Freire, The
Pedagogy of Freedom]
Garcia, A. G. and Guevara, L., Voicing Voices. Innovations in the Reflecting

Process. Anderson, A. and Jensen, P. (eds), Karnac, London, 2007.
Sue Robinson 259
__________________________________________________________________
Shotter, J., Realidades Conversasionales: La Construccin de la vida a t ravs del

lenguaje. Amorrortu, Buenos Aires, 2001. Cited in Garcia and Guevara, 2007.
[English original, Conversational Realities: Constructing Life through Language.]
Yankelovich, D., The Magic of Dialogue. Nicholas Brealey, London, 2001.
Sue Robinson is employed by West London Mental Health Trust as a f amily

therapist working with children in schools and developing initiatives to explore
issues such as recovery from trauma, bereavement and anti-bullying. She also
works as a p rivate mediator, a p sychoanalytic psychotherapist and EMDR
therapist.
Acknowledgments
I wish to acknowledge the contribution of the London Finding a Voice events

participants. Specific acknowledgement is given to Helen Mahaffey for her work in
co-designing and co-facilitating the Finding a Voice events in London. Thanks are
also due to Andrew Curry, who contributed extensive additional material to this
chapter and co-facilitated the workshop in Prague; and to Peter Bray, whose
flexible chairing of the workshop session in Prague made the conversation
possible.
Modern Turkey, a Traumatized Society: The Repressed
Experience of Torture and Killing after the Putsch in 1980
Georg Friedrich Simet

Abstract
After the military seized power in Turkey on 12 S eptember 1980, about 600,000
people were arrested; 150 died under torture, 50 were executed. Recently,
constitutional changes were approved in order to reshape the judiciary and curb
military powers. Among the 26 amendments was a measure annulling an article
blocking legal action against the leaders of the coup. This chapter will reflect on
three trauma cases. Firstly, the poet Enver Karagz will be introduced. He
represents a politically less engaged intellectual who was arrested, tortured and
exiled. Secondly, Doan Akhanl stands for an intellectual who addresses un-
welcomed truths (e.g. the Armenian genocide). He was arrested for membership in
an illegal leftist political group. Recently, on 10 August 2010, he was again taken
into custody for a murder committed 21 years ago. Lastly, this chapter will focus
on Ylmaz Gney, a Kurdish film director, scenarist, novelist and actor of Kurdish
descent. He escaped from prison in 1981 and took the negatives of his film Yol
(Road) with him. The film was banned until 1999, and is likely the first document
that looked at the society of the early 80s.
Key Words: Enver Karagz, Doan Akhanl, Ylmaz Gney, Yol, coup d'tat.
*****
1. Militarism and Nation Building in Modern Turkey

It is important to note that the Republic of Turkey emerged from war.
According to the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 16 M ay 1916, the governments of
Britain and France intended to disintegrate the country by dividing the Ottoman
Empire between several states. Subsequently, the Greek as well saw their chance to
realise their (great idea) of taking over the government of Turkey. In
order to defeat this purpose, General Mustafa Kemal organised national resistance
and defeated the invading troops. Remembering its War for Independence, since
1923 the whole country celebrates its Victory Day (Zafer Bayram) on 30 August.
The army sees itself and is seen by most Turks as the guarantor of both
independence and unity.
The parliamentary system was introduced by the military. Whenever its elite
saw the state in danger later on, it reserved the right to intervene and to govern the
country temporarily. Up to now this has happened three times, most recently in
1980, when again, the polity dissolved, the public administration began to collapse
and the terrorist militancy on the left and the right escalated. 1
262 Modern Turkey, a Traumatized Society
__________________________________________________________________
The intention to re-establish internal security was executed radically and with
brute force. From the perspective of the generals, everyone who seemed more
right or, in particular, more left than normal was suspected and pursued. 2
According to official figures, 230,000 people were prosecuted in military courts. 3
Most of the imprisoned were tortured; 299 of them died.
Violence was countered with violence; but the violence of the executive
authorities was, and is, not punished. All constitutions of Turkey were and are still
influenced by its military (regimes). In particular the fourth constitution ratified on
7 November 1982 is seen by Turkish intellectuals as a product of the 12
September (1980) military coup. 4 It guaranteed impunity for the putschists
(darbeciler). Only on the 30th anniversary of the last coup d'tat, the ruling Justice
and Development Party (AKP) gave the people the opportunity to put an end to
impunity. 5 The voters approved a reform package including the repeal of the
Provisional Article 15, barring prosecution of members of the National Security
Council and technocrats who had legislative and executive power following the
coup. 6 One day later, human rights groups leapt into action, filing petitions that
called for former President Ahmet Kenan Evren and other coup leaders to be tried.
2. Enver Karagz Extermination of the Rose of Resistance 7

The Turkish-German Human Rights Association (TDAY), Kln - founded by
Enver and Ilay Karagz - also started a petition to try the putschists.
Enver Karagz was born on 2 M ay 1948 i n Artvin, the uttermost northeast
province of Turkey. He graduated from the University of Erzurum. At this time he
tended to the leftist movement; he read often and recited poems for the masses
during protest meetings.
On 30 April 1970, Karagz was assigned to the Senior High School of Artvin
to teach Turkish literature. He joined the Turkish Teachers Union and took part in
all of their activities.
The principal of the school was not very pleased that he had to work with this
young and progressive teacher. So, during the turbulent years around the 2nd coup,
the principal reported to the Ministry of Education of Karagz misdemeanours
which included the reciting of Nazm Hikmet, a world renowned poet who was
disliked in Turkey because of his communist views and who had been stripped of
his nationality in 1959. In reaction to these misdemeanours, the Ministry dismissed
Karagz. He served in the Turkish Armed Forces for his compulsory period of 18
months. Afterwards, he was lucky enough to return to his beloved profession with
the assistance of his previous inspector of education who happened to work at the
ministry.
His future wife, Ilay Kaya, was at this time a student at his school. Once she
requested to visit his lesson. She was amazed by his method of teaching
antiauthoritarian and humanitarian. She fell in love with him. On 5 November 1977
they got married.
Georg Friedrich Simet 263
__________________________________________________________________
The military intervention on 12 September 1980 interrupted the private
happiness. In order to identify all supporters of left parties and movements,
Karagz - together with almost all colleagues, students and intellectuals of Artvin
who were suspected of being progressive (teenagers and retired people included) -
was placed in the Teachers Education Institute which was transformed into a
torture and interrogation camp. They all had to undergo systematic and ruthless
torture from beatings to electroshocks. His wife remembers that the flesh of her
husbands feet was torn to bone and his body was burnt at the places where the
electrodes were applied. His wife was tortured in the cell next to him so that he
could hear her cries. She was released after more than a month, but her husbands
times of pain continued. One day his torturers forced his jaws open and poured
boiling water through his mouth. They told him from now on you will not be able
to talk anymore; [...] we do not give you more than six months to live. 8 Karagz
vocal cords were so terribly burnt that he instantly lost his voice. His situation
deteriorated every day and he was transferred to the specialized army hospital in
Ankara to cure the resultant throat cancer.
One of his older colleagues, Kazm Krolu, reports why Karagzs nickname
The Rose of Resistance (Diren Gl) is so well befitting for his character: he
withstood the torture. In his file there were only details of his identity; he hadnt
revealed any information at all. 9
In 1984 Karagz was released from confinement without any punishment, but
the same day the newspaper Hrriyet commentated: The principal defendant of
Artvins Revolutionary Way is released. 10 Karagz decided to leave the country.
On 9 March 1984 he and his wife took different planes to Germany. He asked for
political asylum; his request was granted. Till his death, he lived in Kln and
continued to be active for the just cause of human rights in Turkey.
After being granted a German passport he visited Turkey in 2004. At the
Atatrk Airport in Istanbul during passport control the policemen on duty told him
to follow him to the Police Department, the Bureau of Terrorist Activities.
Approximately an hour later an officer came into the room and asked Karagz
whether he recognized him. Yes, he did. It was one of his torturers.
Karagz died of throat cancer on 27 March 2007 in a hospital room. He left
behind a loving wife and two children as well as a collection of poems. Though
Hrriyet addressed Karagz in 1984 as one of the main bad revolutionists, on 19
June 2008 i t published an article nicely formulated: Remembering the countrys
Rose of Resistance that lost its voice. 11
3. Doan Akhanl The Ongoing Persecution 12

The case of Doan Akhanl that we will look at now shows that the judiciary
as the wing of the military armed with paragraphs is unpredictable and fights full
of hatred against dissenters. 13
__________________________________________________________________
Akhanl and Karagz were born near the same town, avat, in the Artvin
province, but Akhanl, born on 18 March 1957, is about nine years younger. In
contrast to Karagz he left the remote place and moved to Istanbul at the age of
twelve. Six years later, he was imprisoned for the first time. His crime was that he
bought the left-wing newspaper Halkn Sesi (Voice of the People) - that today,
supports racist positions - at a kiosk. He was questioned for eleven days, arrested
and held in custody for five months. Although he was acquitted in the process that
followed, his bad experience had a lasting influence on him: Since then my
confidence in the Turkish state was completely undermined. 14 His stay in prison
made him a communist.
During the 1980 coup detat Akhanl was enrolled at the Karadeniz Technical
University. At this time he became a member of the Albania orientated TDKP
(Trkiye Devrimci Komnist Partisi). 15 As he knew that he was still in danger of
being arrested, he went underground. Nevertheless, in 1985 he was detected and
detained. He and his wife were tortured in the presence of their child. His wife and
son were released after one year but he had to stay on for two more. The
experience left all of them feeling as small as breadcrumbs 16 (unufak olmutuk). 17
In September 1987, when his prison stay was temporarily suspended, he used the
chance to go underground again. The next events will be summarized very briefly:
In 1991, he [his wife and son] fled to Germany, where he was

granted political refugee status. In 1998, Turkey stripped him of
his Turkish citizenship. He became a G erman citizen in 2001.
Since the mid-1990s, he has been living in Cologne. 18
The very well documented present phase of Akhanls life started with his
travel to Turkey on 10 A ugust 2010. Although he knew that it would not be
harmless, his wish to see his 87-year-old sick father once again before his death
overrode all concerns. At the Sabiha Gken airport of Istanbul Akhanl he was
detained and taken to the same cellblock, called Siberia, in the Metris Prison where
he had been held in detention 24 years before. Based on this event Akhanl wrote a
short story called Siberia.
Akhanl was and still is blamed for i) a robbery attack against an exchange
office in the Eminn district of Istanbul on 20 October 1989, ii) the killing of the
owner brahim Yaar Tutum during the escape, and iii) being the leader of the
TKP-YKB-HKB (Trkiye Halk Kurtulu Partisi-Yeniden Kurulu Birlii- Halk
Kurtulu Gleri) terrorist gang 19 which raided - as it is claimed - in order to raise
funds for sustaining terroristic acts in future, whereas Akhanl doesnt know of and
disbelieves in the existence of such an organization. 20
Although it turned out after a f ew days that the testimonies of the witnesses
were obtained through the use of force and torture and renounced later on, the
accusations against Akhanl were not withdrawn. The news of his fathers death
__________________________________________________________________
reached him in prison. After nearly four months in jail and after the first hearing on
8 December 2010, he was released. Since 6 January 2011 Akhanl is back in his
exile defined by Akhanl as a place free of torture. 21 Although the next hearing is
scheduled for 9 March 2011, it is not clear yet if Turkey would be interested in the
follow-up, as it is embarrassing for Turkey that they allowed Akhanls entry. 22
4. Ylmaz Gney and his film Yol A Way Out?

Last, but not least, we will focus on the impact of the coup on Turkeys largest
ethnic minority, the Kurds. This minority still suffers the most, as all Kurds were
and are seen in principle as separatists.
We will look at Ylmaz Gney and his film Yol (The Way). Although all his
films reflect on social conflicts in Turkey - mainly from the perspective of the
Kurds, Yol is unique. As Karzan Kardozi rightly puts it:
Yol is the gem of the Kurdish cinema, it is perhaps the best

Kurdish film [] and still is the most honored of all the Kurdish
films, winning Best Picture PalmDor and International Critics
Prize at Cannes Film Festival in 1982. 23
Ylmaz Ptn alias Ylmaz Gney is of Kurdish descent. He was born as a son
of a farmhand in Yenice, a village close to Adana, on 1 April 1937. At the age of
14 he moved to Adana, as he did not wish to live in dependence on the large
landowners like his parents. In 1953 he discovered his passion for movies. Even a
few years earlier he started to write short stories. His literary talent and personality
impressed Atf Ylmaz, one of the most renowned Turkish film directors and Yaar
Kemal, one of the most important Kurdish-Turkish novelists. Both invited Gney
to co-write their screenplay. In addition, in 1958, Gney was asked to play the
main part in The Children of this Country (Bu Vatann ocuklar). Yet his just
started acting career was interrupted quite soon. In 1961, he was imprisoned for 18
months for having disseminated communistic propaganda. Nevertheless, even this
event could not hinder his career. Gney became The Ugly King (irkin Kral) of
Turkish Cinema due to his rude and upright tough-guy image 24 and the fact that
he mostly played underprivileged social crooks. His popularity reached its climax
in 1965, when he took part in no less than twenty-two films.
Finally, in 1968, Gney became a filmmaker and produced his first film, Seyyit
Han. Four years later Gney was arrested again, as he harbored anarchist students.
Due to the proclamation of a general amnesty in 1974, Gney was released, but
that same year he was re-arrested. He was accused for shooting Sefa Mutlu, the
public prosecutor of the Yumurtalk district in the Adana Province on 13
September that year.
Gney was found guilty and given a p rison sentence of 19 years. Although
there is much evidence that he shot Mutlu, even today it is not absolutely clear-cut,
__________________________________________________________________
especially as respectively some of his colleagues and friends claimed that they did
it. 25
In October 1981, Gney used a prison holiday to escape. He fled to Europe - as
did some 29,500 people. 26 Prior to his flight to France he finalized the screenplay
of Yol and asked erif Gren to direct the film.
In anticipation of his own escape, Yol tells the way of five Kurdish prisoners
who took their long awaited leave from prison, but, unlike Gney, they do not
leave the country. Most of the stories told in the film are truthfully recounted. 27
As the prison can be seen as a m etaphor to describe Turkey itself, the film
provides an evocative glimpse of what life was like for the ordinary people during
this period. 28 Violence dominates their lives. The only way out is empathy and
compassion, but even that does not serve as an option in normality. In the film
these attitudes are only introduced shortly before death is inevitable.
Having realized some more important films in exile, Gney died of gastric
cancer at the age of just 47, in Paris on 9 September 1984.
Gney and his films are still famous in Turkey, as he further developed the
new, socially critical type of film. After Gney other filmmakers also tried and
sentenced the last military coup. In particular the film Where the Rose Withers
(Gln Bittii Yer), by smail Gne narrates very drastically how violence
continued in Turkey. 29
5. Conclusion
It is important to remember that the Turkish republic was built by the military
in a W ar of Independence based on heroic principles and having caused heavy
losses. The importance of the military as the guarantee of the state is still visible
even in the expression of non-military associations. 30
This view is the main reason that state violence was and still is tolerated. The
clash within Turkish society can be described as a collision between those who are
state-oriented and those who are civil-society oriented. 31 The development of a
civil society in Turkey depends not least on the extent to which it succeeds to name
and to overcome the culture of violence in daily life - by individuals and
movements like The Young Civilians (Gen Siviller), people that have no
connection to violence at all, being no ones man and non-uniformed. 32
Notes
1
U. Steinbach, Die Trkei im 20. Jahrhundert, Schwieriger Partner Europas,
Gustav Lbbe Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach, 1996, p. 197
2
Experts like Udo Steinbach believe that people from the left and the right wing
were pursued equally (Ibid., p. 198), but other experts like Baak al argue: The
1980 coup involved an unprecedented degree of state violence, especially toward
the political activity of all left-wing groups. (B. al, Human Rights Discourse
__________________________________________________________________
and Domestic Human Rights NGOs, Human Rights in Turkey, Z.F.K. Arat (ed),
University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2007, p. 221)
3
Associated Press, Turkish Exhibit Displays Coup-era Torture Instruments ahead
of Constitutional Referendum, Fox News, 7 September 2010, Viewed on 10
January 2011, http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/09/07/turkish-exhibit-displays
-coup-era-torture-instruments-ahead-constitutional. A very detailed list titled
Results of the Putsch (Dabenin Sonular) was published by NTV-MSNBC, 12
Eylln bilanosu, ntvmsnbc, 12 S eptember 2007, Viewed on 9 J anuary 2011,
http://arsiv.ntvmsnbc.com/news/419690.asp.
4
A. Aaolu et al., Citizens Declaration, European Stability Initiative, 27 April
2007, Viewed on 13 January 2011, http://www.esiweb.org/pdf/turkey_citizens_
declaration_pre_July2007_elections.pdf.
5
On their homepage, the Adalet ve Kalknma Partisi tries to rename its official
title. Instead of using the acronym AKP it writes AK P, Ak Parti (White Party) in
order to show that it has a clean slate.
6
A.J. Yackley, A. Sarioglu and K. Liffey, Factbox: Turkeys Constitutional
Amendments, Reuters, 12 S eptember 2010, Viewed on 06 January 2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68B28B20100912?pageNumber=3.
7
The text about Karagz is discussed with Karagz wife Ilay and based on a
draft provided by Yavuz Krk who gives colorful presentations of Karagz life
and his poems. (D. Haber Ajans, air Enver Karagz iirleriyle anld,
haberler.com, Viewed on 31 January 2011, http://www.haberler.com/sair-enver-
karagoz-siirleriyle-anildi-haberi.
8
Ibid., p. 46.
9
K. Krolu, retmenin Ardndan, Diren Gl, A. ztrk, (ed), op. cit., p.
354.
10
I. Karagz, op. cit., p. 53.
11
Hrriyet, Sesini kaybeden lkenin Diren Gl anld, Hrriyet, 19 June
2008, Viewed on 16 January 2011, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/ankara/
9226935.asp.
12
This part of the chapter is written in discussion with Doan Akhanl.
13
A. Kieser, Doan Akhanl ist frei, Stadtrevue, Das Klnmagazin, January
2011, p. 19.
14
Ibid.
15
The Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT), Writer Dogan Akhanli Jailed
in Turkey, Trkeiforum, Viewed on 20 J anuary 2011, http://www.tuerkeiforum.
net/enw/index.php/Writer_Dogan_Akhanli_jailed_in_Turkey.
16
Ibid.; Quotation from Die Fremde und eine Reise im Herbst, op. cit.
17
D. Akhanl, Gurbet ve Sonbahar Yolculuu, March 2008, gerechtigkeit fr
doan akhanl, Viewed on 23 J anuary 2011, http://gerechtigkeit-fuer-dogan-
__________________________________________________________________
akhanli.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/GurbetveSonbaharYolculugu_Dogan
Akhanli.pdf, p. 4.
18
Gerechtigkeit fr Doan Akhanl, Biography, gerechtigkeit fr doan akhanl,
Viewed on 20 January 2011, http://gerechtigkeit-fuer-dogan-akhanli.de/blog/ ?page
_id=24.
19
S Gnday, 21 Yl sonra yakalanan Yazar Akhanl'nn Mebbet Hapsi istendi,
Milliyet, 7 September 2010, Viewed on 22 January 2011, http://www.milliyet.com.
tr/21-yil-sonra-yakalanan-yazar-akhanli-nin-muebbet-hapsi-istendi/turkiye/sondak
ika/07.09.2010/1286354/default.htm.
20
All parts of the article related to Akhanl were discussed with him on 24 January
2011. We found out that not all information provided on the internet is true and
corrected this data discreetly.
21
M. Oehlen, Kein Visum fr die Haft im Gefngnis, Klner Stadt-Anzeiger, 6
January 2011, Viewed on 23 January 2011, http://www.ksta.de/html/artikel/
1294060147674.shtml.
22
As Akhanl was and still is not allowed to enter the country, it seems that the
proceedings are stayed.
23
K. Kardozi, YOL: The Road of Yilmaz Guney, The Moving Silent, 15
December 2010, Viewed on 21 J anuary 2011, http://themovingsilent.word
press.com/2010/12/15/kurdish-cinema-yol-yilmaz-guney-1982.
24
A. Suner, New Turkish Cinema: Belonging, Identity and Memory, I. B. Tauris,
New York, 2010, p. 5.
25
E. Kazan, Besuch bei Ylmaz Gney oder die Vision eines trkischen
Gefngnisses, J. Heijs (ed), op. cit., p. 56.
26
E. Yavuz, [Nation set to confront coup legacy] Turkey to decide today on trying
Coup Generals, Todays Zaman, 12 September 2010, Viewed on 30 January 2011,
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-221402-nation-set-to-confront-coup-legacy-
turkey-to-decide-today-on-trying-coup-generals.html.
27
M. Ciment, Eine Unterhaltung mit Ylmaz Gney, J. Heijs (ed), op. cit., p. 36.
28
A. Kenny, Coming to Terms with Turkey through Films: Yol - by Ylmaz
Gney, Todays Zaman, 20 September 2010, Viewed on 18 January 2011,
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-222104-coming-to-terms-with-turkey-through-
films-yol-by-yilmaz-guney.html.
29
J. Leicht, Zeichen der Hoffnung - und viele Fragen, Teil 1, World Socialist
Web Site, 11 M ay 2000, Viewed on 30 J anuary 2011, http://www.wsws.org/de/
2000/mai2000/turf-m11.shtml.
30
Just one example: A poster of the Aydn Chess District Representative in 2009
shows Atatrk in front of marching soldiers saying The Turkish nation loves its
armed forces; and regards it as the preserver of its ideals. (Aydn Satran l
Temsilcilii, 30 Austos Zafer Bayrami Turnuvasi, Aydn Satran l Temsilcilii,
__________________________________________________________________
30 August 2009, Viewed on 26 January 2010, http://www.aydinsatranciltem

silciligi.com.
31
E. Shafak, There is no Clash of Civilizations, Qantara.de, 2005, Viewed on 26
January 2010, http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_i. html.
32
G. Siviller, Who are Young Civilians?, Gen Siviller, 6 April 2008, Viewed on
30 January 2011, http://www.gencsiviller.net/haber.php?haber_id=40.
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Georg Friedrich Simet is co-founder and Vice President of the Neuss University
for International Business, Germany, where he teaches Theory and Propaedeutics
of Science. While also interested in Practical Philosophy, he is involved in the
Society of Intercultural Philosophy. His main research area in this respect is the
development of the EU with a particular focus on Turkey.
The Effect of a Guided Narrative Technique among Children
Traumatised by the Earthquake
Yinyin Zang, Nigel Hunt and Tom Cox

Abstract
This study investigated the effectiveness of an intervention to reduce trauma-
related symptoms using a guided narrative technique (GNT) in a sample of Chinese
children traumatised by the Sichuan earthquake. Participants were eighty-two
Chinese fourth grade children. Two classes were randomly assigned to the GNT
group, which entailed specific verbal guidelines regarding what to write, and one
class was assigned to the control group which applied a mixed expressive writing
and painting (MEWP), without verbal guidelines. Participants were assessed one
day before and one day after the intervention. Analyses revealed overall
intervention effects on intrusion, arousal, anxiety, and panic disorder symptoms.
Intervention by group effect was found for symptoms of avoidance and positive
changes. Thus, both GNT and MEWP were effective in symptom reduction. GNT
improved positive growth more than MEWP, and did not increase avoidance. The
results are discussed in terms of the potential benefits of both methods.
Key Words: Children, guided narrative, emotional disclosure, expressive writing,

PTSD, earthquake trauma.
*****
1. Introduction
On 12 May 2008 an earthquake of magnitude 8.0 on the Richter scale hit China,
causing extensive damage in Sichuan province. The earthquake destroyed c. 6.5
million homes and affected c. 46 million people. Natural disasters are associated
with increased prevalence of psychiatric morbidity such as posttraumatic stress
disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. 1 2
Children and adolescents may develop PTSD after exposure to an earthquake;
reported rates range from 21% to 70%. 3 4 Follow-up studies have shown long-term
persistence of PTSD symptoms. 5 Notwithstanding high prevalence rates and a
significant impact on public health, 6 there are relatively few published studies
evaluating the efficacy of interventions in this area for children. 7
Given the extent of mental health problems following earthquakes, brief,
effective and cost-effective treatment interventions for children are urgently needed.
One relatively simple intervention is expressive writing (EW), the written
disclosure of traumatic experiences. Typically, participants write about a traumatic
experience over 3-4 consecutive days, for 15-20 minutes a day. Participants are
invited to write continuously about an upsetting or traumatic experience and to
focus on their deepest thoughts and feelings about the experience. They are told not
274 The Effect of a Guided Narrative Technique among Children
__________________________________________________________________
to be unduly concerned about spelling or grammar. 8
EW improves psychological and physical well-being. 9 10 In the last 20 years,
this approach has been tested with different populations, mostly clinical patients or
college students. 11 A few published EW trials with younger people suggest that
clinical and at-risk samples can receive some benefits from EW and disclosure
interventions. 12 No studies have been conducted in children traumatised by an
earthquake.
Some studies 13 have explored the content of the writings and found that the use
of words that reflect causality and insight regarding the trauma predict positive
health outcomes. Where participants are encouraged to adopt a n arrative and
cohesive approach there are fewer intrusive thoughts and a positive health
outcome. 14 Positive experiences, negative emotions, personal growth, and having a
future-orientated perspective in writing are associated with health
improvement. 15 16 17
Most EW studies provide simple verbal or written instructions for their
participants, emphasising the focus on the emotional content of their writing, but
not providing further guidance for each day of the task. This study moves beyond
the simple writing task to explore whether more sophisticated instructions help the
writer to express their trauma-related thoughts more effectively. Each day the
participants are provided with specific instructions to help them develop effective
narratives.
2. Method
A. Participants
Eighty-two students from three fourth grade classes participated in the study.
Written consent was obtained from the school. All students provided oral consent
and the study was approved by the University of Nottingham ethics committee.
B. Measures
PTSD symptoms were assessed using the Childrens Revised Impact of Event
Scale CRIES, 18 a 13-item scale measuring symptoms of intrusion, avoidance and
arousal, with a Cronbach's coefficient of 0.80. 19 The CRIES was translated into
Chinese.
Anxiety and depression were assessed using the Revised Child Anxiety and
Depression Scales (RCADS), 20 a 47-item self-report questionnaire, with scales
corresponding to separation anxiety disorder (SAD), social phobia (SP),
generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder (PD), obsessive compulsive
disorder (OCD), and major depressive disorder (MDD). There is support for the
RCADS in non-referred samples of youth. 21 All subscales of RCADS have a good
internal consistency around 0.8. A previously translated Chinese version was used
in this study.
The Changes in Outlook Questionnaire (CiOQ) 22 is a 26 self-report measure
Yinyin Zang, Nigel Hunt and Tom Cox 275
__________________________________________________________________
that was designed to assess positive and negative changes in the aftermath of
adversity. It consists of an 11-item scale assessing positive changes, and 15-item
scale assessing negative changes. Each item is answered on a 6-point scale ranging
from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (6). It has been used in studies with a
wide variety of participants following trauma and adversity. 23 The CiOQ was
translated into Chinese. One item from the positive scale and two items from the
negative scale, which were hard to understand in Chinese, were deleted.
C. Study Design
The intervention was implemented with the students in three classes of a
primary school in Beichuan County, which was badly damaged in the earthquake.
We applied a pre-post design with treatment (GNT, two classes) and control
(MEWP, one class) groups. Children in both groups completed questionnaires one
day before and one day after the sessions. The assessments were administered by
trained volunteers who were blind to condition.
D. Writing Conditions
GNT aims to enable participants to better express their trauma-related emotion.
In the GNT condition, students were asked to consider their experience in the
earthquake over three consecutive days. Day 1: describe the earthquake experience
and their deepest feelings and thoughts. Day 2: write down negative thoughts and
feelings relating to the earthquake. Day 3: write down any positive thoughts and
feelings about the earthquake, and their perspective on the future. In MEWP,
students were asked to write about the earthquake experience and their deepest
feeling and thoughts for three consecutive days. This was adapted from
Pennebakers standard EW instructions. All were told not to be concerned about
spelling or grammar. Many students in MEWP found it difficult to write for three
consecutive days, so they were told they could draw or paint their thoughts instead
on the third day. Childrens drawings are an effective way of dealing with trauma-
related emotion. 24
3. Result
A. Baseline
No statistically significant differences were found between the groups in
relation to age and gender, both groups averaging 9.77 years.
B. Impact of Treatment
The means and standard deviations of the subscales at pre- and post- test are
shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Comparison of scale scores in GNT (n=52) and Control (n=30)

Pre Post Intervention Intervention
__________________________________________________________________
treatment treatment Effect *Group effect
Measure Mean(SD) Mean(SD) df F df F
Intrusion
GNT 9.33(4.10) 7.01(4.47) 1,80 20.21** 1,80 0.24
Control 8.43(5.35) 5.57(3.26)
Avoidance
GNT 8.79(4.33) 8.54(4.24) 1,80 2.57 1,80 4.41*
Control 6.70(5.06) 8.57(5.70)
Arousal
GNT 10.00(4.22) 8.48(4.79) 1,80 9.44** 1,80 0.2
Control 9.87(4.50) 7.83(5.72)
PTSD_Total
GNT 28.12(8.22) 24.04(9.86) 1,80 9.67** 1,80 0.21
Control 25.00(11.64) 21.97(11.51)
General Anxiety Disorder
GNT 7.10(4.09) 6.40(4.69) 1,80 10.01** 1,80 1.71
Control 7.03(3.86) 5.37(4.37)
Panic disorder
GNT 6.77(4.59) 5.94(5.76) 1,80 4.39* 1,80 0.04
Control 5.87(4.96) 4.87(4.86)
Positive
GNT 37.31(9.94) 41.75(9.90) 1,80 1.10 1,80 8.94**
Control 43.40(8.46) 41.27(10.35)
Negative
GNT 34.13(12.25) 30.50(12.35) 1,80 1.97 1,80 3.42
Control 32.80(11.68) 33.30(11.80)
Note:**p<0.01;*p<0.05
ANOVAs revealed a significant intervention effect on intrusion, arousal, and

PTSD total score, generalised anxiety disorder, and panic disorder. Both GNT and
MEWP produced a statistically significant reduction of reported symptoms. There
are no significant intervention effects, group effects, or interaction effects on
separation anxiety, social phobia, obsessive compulsive, and major depression.
There was a significant interaction of intervention by group for avoidance
symptom and positive changes in outlook. In terms of positive changes, the mean
scores of the GNT group increased and the mean scores of control group went
__________________________________________________________________
down. In the case of avoidance, the mean score of the control group increased,
while the GNT did not.
4. Discussion
The effectiveness of GNT and the MEWP were compared to determine whether
they would lead to a d ecrease in trauma-related symptoms. Both methods are
effective at reducing the symptoms of intrusion, arousal, and anxiety. The positive
effects of these interventions for psychological health are consistent with theories
about how EW works. 25 Contrary to our hypothesis, the GNT did not work better
than MEWP for most symptoms. However, compared with GNT, MEWP leads to
more avoidance symptoms and less positive growth after an earthquake, the former
suggesting the tentative conclusion that GNT may help provide more active coping,
and the latter that GNT may be more effective in improving the participants
perspectives on life.
The increase of avoidance in MEWP was unexpected, but is consistent with one
study which found that EW can lead to the increase of repression coping. 26 The
most adaptive strategy utilised by the general population is distancing themselves
from the situation as the outcome of the situation is not dependent on their will. 27
That might be true in children where the development of the ability to use problem-
focused strategies is still in progress. 28 GNT did not induce an increase in
avoidance, perhaps because the negative and positive emotion focused instructions
provide children with assistance in understanding the trauma experience and is
helpful for the development of more problem-focused strategies.
While both strategies led to an improvement of PTSD symptoms and anxiety as
predicted, it is not clear whether this is because GNT does not provide further
intrinsic improvements, or whether there are other factors involved. The age of the
children (c. 10 years); they may lack the sophistication to benefit from the added
instructions. It may also be the instructions themselves, which may not have
provided enough detail. There may also be cultural factors. Also, any benefits may
require more than three sessions. This requires further research, particularly as
there were differences relating to avoidance and positive outlook.
Various writing narrative interventions are being used in different cultures, and
it is important to evaluate the effectiveness of this intervention. There are no
published EW studies with Chinese children. This makes it d ifficult to know
whether writing therapy is effective with non-western cultures, because it is
possible that cross-cultural differences in emotional expression, or the nature of the
writing itself (pictographic) might affect the benefit that Chinese obtain from this
kind of an intervention. This is the first study to apply these writing techniques on
Chinese sample. In practice, the standard EW technique was not feasible with such
young children, which means that it may need further adaptation.
There are benefits to GNT, particularly in regard to participants post-traumatic
growth and reduced avoidance symptoms. Further research is needed to determine
__________________________________________________________________
whether such guided techniques can be developed to enhance the benefits of the
writing experience for traumatised people.
Notes
1
A.V. Rubonis and L. Bickman, Psychological Impairment in the Wake of
Disaster: The DisasterPsychopathology Relationship, Psychological Bulletin,
Vol. 109, 1991, pp. 384-390.
2
A.K. Goenjian, A.M. Steinberg, L.M. Najarian, L.A. Fairbanks, M. Tashjian and
R.S. Pynoos, Prospective Study of Posttraumatic Stress, Anxiety and Depressive
Reactions after Earthquake and Political Violence, Am J Psychiatry, Vol. 157,
2000, pp. 911-920.
3
A.K. Goenjian, R.S. Pynoos, A.M. Steinberg, L.M. Najarian, J.R. Asarnow, I.
Karayan, M. Ghurabi and L.A. Fairbanks, Psychiatric Comorbidity in Children
after the 1988 Earthquake in Armenia, J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry, Vol.
34, 1995, pp. 1174-1184.
4
C.-C. Hsu, M.-Y. Chong, P. Yang and C.-F. Yen, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
among Adolescent Earthquake Victims in Taiwan, J Am Acad Child Adolesc
Psychiatry, Vol. 41, 2002, pp. 875-881.
5
Goenjian et al, op. cit., p. 911.
6
T.M. Keane, Clinical Perspectives on Stress, Traumatic Stress and PTSD in
Children and Adolescents, Journal of School Psychology, Vol. 34, 1996, pp. 193-
197.
7
National Institute for Clinical Excellence [NICE], National clinical Practice
Guideline Number 26: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder The Management of
PTSD in Adults and Children in Primary and Secondary Care, Author, London,
2005.
8
J.W. Pennebaker and S.K. Beall, Confronting a Traumatic Event: Toward an
Understanding of Inhibition and Disease, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol.
95, 1986, pp. 274-281.
9
J.M. Smyth, Written Emotional Expression: Effect Sizes, Outcome Types, and
Moderating Variables, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Vol. 66,
1998, p. 175.
10
J. Frattaroli, Experimental Disclosure and its Moderator: A Meta-Analysis,
Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 132, 2006, pp. 823-865.
11
Ibid., p. 175.
12
F. Giannotta, M. Settanni, W. Kliewer and S. Ciairano, Results of an Italian
School-Based Expressive Writing Intervention Trial Focused on Peer Problems,
Journal of Adolescence, Vol. 32, No. 6, Elsevier Ltd, 2009, pp. 1377-1389.
13
J.W. Pennebaker and M. Francis, Cognitive, Emotional and Language Processes
in Disclosure, Cognition and Emotion, Vol. 10, 1996, pp. 601-626.
__________________________________________________________________
14
J.M. Smyth, N. True and J. Souto, Effects of Writing about Traumatic
Experiences: The Necessity for Narrative Structuring, Journal of Social and
Clinical Psychology, Vol. 20, 2001, pp. 161-172.
15
E.B. Foa, C. Molnar and L. Cashman, Change in Rape Narratives during
Exposure Therapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Journal of Traumatic Stress,
Vol. 8, 1995, pp. 675-690.
16
A.L. Stanton et al, Randomized Controlled Trial of Written Emotional
Expression and Benefit Finding in Breast Cancer Patients, Journal of Clinical
Oncology, Vol. 20, 2002, pp. 4160-4168.
17
A.R. Hariri, S.Y. Bookheimer and J.C. Mazziotta, Modulating Emotional
Responses: Effects of a Neocortical Network on the Limbic System, Neuroreport,
Vol. 11, 2000, pp. 43-48.
18
P. Smith, S. Perrin, A. Dyregrov and W. Yule, Principal Components Analysis
of the Impact of Event Scale with Children in War, Pers. Individ. Differ, Vol. 34,
2003, pp. 315-322.
19
Ibid., p. 315.
20
B.F. Chorpita, L. Yim, C.E. Moftt, L.A. Umemoto and S.E. Francis,
Assessment of Symptoms of DSM- IV Anxiety and Depression in Children: A
Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale, Behaviour Research and Therapy,
Vol. 38, 2000, pp. 835-855.
21
Ibid., p. 835.
22
S. Joseph, R. Williams and W. Yule, Changes in Outlook Following Disaster:
Preliminary Development of a Measure to Assess Positive and Negative
Responses, Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 6, 1993, pp. 271-279.
23
S. Joseph, P.A. Linley, M. Shevlin, B. Goodfellow and L. Butler, Assessing
Positive and Negative Changes in the Aftermath of Adversity: A Short Form of the
Changes in Outlook Questionnaire, Journal of Loss and Trauma, Vol. 11, 2006,
pp. 85-89.
24
T. Wertheim-Cahen, M. Euwema and M. Nabarro, Trees Coloured Pink, The
Use of Creativity as a Means of Psychosocial Support for Children in Kosovo: An
Ongoing Learning Process, Intervention, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2005, pp. 112-121.
25
J.W. Pennebaker, Putting Stress into Words: Health, Linguistic and Therapeutic
Implications, Behaviour Research and Therapy, Vol. 31, 1993, pp. 539-548.
26
Giannotta et al., op, cit., p. 1377.
27
R.S. Lazarus and S. Folkman, Stress, Appraisal, and Coping, Springer, New
York, 1984, p. 87.
28
M.A. Griffith, E.F. Dubow and M.F. Ippolito, Developmental and Cross
Situational Differences in Adolescents Coping Strategies, Journal of Youth and
Adolescence, Vol. 29, 2000, pp. 183-204.
__________________________________________________________________
Bibliography
Chorpita, B.F., Yim, L., Moftt, C.E., Umemoto, L.A. and Francis, S.E.,
Assessment of Symptoms of DSM-IV Anxiety and Depression in Children: A
Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale. Behaviour Research and Therapy.
Vol. 38, 2000, pp. 835-855.
Foa, E.B., Molnar, C. and Cashman, L., Change in Rape Narratives during
Exposure Therapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Journal of Traumatic Stress.
Vol. 8, 1995, pp. 675-690.
Goenjian A.K., Pynoos, R.S., Steinberg, AM., Najarian, L.M., Asarnow, J.R.,
Karayan, I., Ghurabi, M. and Fairbanks, L.A., Psychiatric Comorbidity in
Children after the 1988 Earthquake in Armenia. J Am Acad Child Adolesc
Psychiatry. Vol. 34, 1995, pp. 1174-1184.
Giannotta F., Settanni F., Kliewer W. and Ciairano S., Results of an Italian
School-Based Expressive Writing Intervention Trial Focused on Peer Problems.
Journal of Adolescence. Vol. 32, No. 6, December 2009, pp. 1377-89.
Goenjian A.K., Steinberg A.M., Najarian L.M., Fairbanks L.A., Tashjian M. and
Pynoos, R.S., Prospective Study of Posttraumatic Stress, Anxiety, and Depressive
Reactions after Earthquake and Political Violence. Am J Psychiatry. Vol. 157,
2000, pp. 911-920.
Griffith, M.A., Dubow, E.F. and Ippolito, M.F., Developmental and Cross
Situational Differences in Adolescents Coping Strategies. Journal of Youth and
Adolescence. Vol. 29, 2000, pp. 183-204.
Hariri, A.R., Bookheimer, S.Y. and Mazziotta, J.C., Modulating Emotional

Responses: Effects of a Neocortical Network on the Limbic System. Neuroreport.
Vol. 11, 2000, pp. 43-48.
Hsu, C.-C., Chong, M.-Y., Yang, P. and Yen, C.-F., Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
among Adolescent Earthquake Victims in Taiwan. J Am Acad Child Adolesc
Psychiatry. Vol. 41, 2002, pp. 875-881.
Joseph, S., Linley, P.A., Shevlin, M., Goodfellow, B. and Butler, L., Assessing
Positive and Negative Changes in the aftermath of Adversity: A Short Form of the
Changes in Outlook Questionnaire. Journal of Loss and Trauma. Vol. 11, 2006,
pp. 85-89.
__________________________________________________________________
Joseph, S., Williams, R. and Yule, W., Changes in Outlook Following Disaster:
Preliminary Development of a Measure to Assess Positive and Negative
Responses. Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 6, 1993, pp. 271-279.
Keane, T.M., Clinical Perspectives on Stress, Traumatic Stress, and PJSD in

Children and Adolescents. Journal of School Psychology. Vol. 34, 1996, pp. 193-
197.
Lazarus, R.S. and Folkman, S., Stress, Appraisal, and Coping. Springer, New
York, 1984.
Pennebaker, J.W., Putting Stress into Words: Health, Linguistic, and Therapeutic
Implications. Behaviour Research and Therapy. Vol. 31, 1993, pp. 539-548.
Pennebaker, J.W. and Beall, S.K., Confronting a Traumatic Event: Toward an

Understanding of Inhibition and Disease. Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Vol.
95, 1986, pp. 274-281.
Pennebaker, J.W. and Francis, M., Cognitive, Emotional, and Language Processes
in Disclosure. Cognition and Emotion. Vol. 10, 1996, pp. 601-626.
Rubonis A.V. and Bickman, L.L., Psychological Impairment in the Wake of

Disaster: The DisasterPsychopathology Relationship. Psychological Bulletin.
Vol. 109, 1991, pp. 384-390.
Smyth, J.M., Written Emotional Expression: Effect Sizes, Outcome Types and
Moderating Variables. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. Vol. 66,
1998, p. 175.
Frattaroli, J., Experimental Disclosure and Its Moderator: A Meta-Analysis.

Psychological Bulletin. Vol. 132, 2006, pp. 823-865.
Smyth, J.M., True, N. and Souto, J., Effects of Writing about Traumatic
Experiences: The Necessity for Narrative Structuring. Journal of Social and
Clinical Psychology. Vol. 20, 2001, pp. 161-172.
Stanton, A.L. et al., Randomized, Controlled Trial of Written Emotional

Expression and Benefit Finding in Breast Cancer Patients. Journal of Clinical
Oncology. Vol. 20, 2002, pp. 4160-4168.
__________________________________________________________________
Smith, P., Perrin, S., Dyregrov, A. and Yule, W., Principal Components Analysis
of the Impact of Event Scale with Children in War. Pers. Individ. Differ. Vol. 34,
2003, pp. 315-322.
Wertheim-Cahen T., Euwema M. and Nabarro, M., Trees Coloured Pink: The Use
of Creativity as a Means of Psychosocial Support for Children in Kosovo: An
Ongoing Learning Process. Intervention. Vol. 3, 2005, pp. 112-121.
Yinyin Zang is a PhD research student in health psychology at the Institute of

Work, Health and Organisations, University of Nottingham. Her studies mainly
focus on the psychosocial impact of traumatic events and cross-culture comparison
of trauma narrative. Currently her research and writings are devoted to exploring
the effect of narrative intervention with earthquake survivors.
Nigel Hunt is an Associate Professor in health psychology at the Institute of Work,

Health and Organisations, University of Nottingham. His main research interests
concern the consequences of traumatic experiences, particularly in relation to
memory, coping and narrative development, and the interpersonal transmission of
traumatic memories.
Tom Cox is Professor of Organisational Psychology, Institute of Work, Health and

Organisations, University of Nottingham. He specialises in occupational health and
received a CBE for his contribution to this area. He is a Fellow of the British
Psychological Society and of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Public Health.
He is an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine, Royal College
of Physicians of Ireland. He is involved with a number of projects on the impact of
severely stressful and traumatic events both at work and elsewhere.
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PART 1 Performative Traumas

Trauma and Recovery through Art: The Construction of Self 3

Fathers and Sons: An Autoethnographic Case Study of 13

Trauma and Identity in Gaza: Shooting a Cast Lead Elephant 25

Looking at the Iraq War with Eyes Wide Open: Trauma, 31

Be Careful with that Trauma, Christoph: Schlingensiefs 43

Dying on TV: Traumatic Encounter, on Screen and for Real 61

Public Hearing of Private Griefs: Investigating the Performance 69

PART 2 Literary Traumas

He looks at me as if I were a dog: Representations of Shame 81

Enlisting Rage and Speaking Place: Alexis Wrights Carpentaria 91

Locating the Trauma Womb: Ricardo Piglias Absent City 111

Trauma, Memory and Identity in Australian War Fiction: 119

The Trauma of the Ephemeral Body in Michel Houellebecqs 127

Trauma and the Condition of the Postmodern Identity 137

Writing Tortures Remnants: Sovereign Power, Affect and the 145

Because Memory is Also a Prison: The Holocaust and the 155

Collective Trauma in Modern Afrikaans Fiction 165

PART 3 Theorising Trauma in Practice

A Jungian Approach to Understanding and Treating Adopted 177

Trauma to the Body Politic: Impacts and Adjustments 189

Criticizing Collective Trauma: A Plea for a Fundamental Social 199

A Feel for the Organism: Cultural and Methodological Contexts 217

Psychoanalysis and Trauma: Changes in the Theory and the 229

Touring the Traumascape: War Tours in Sarajevo 237

Persistence and Transformation of Cultural Trauma: 245

Finding a Voice 253

Modern Turkey, a Traumatized Society: The Repressed 261

The Effect of a Guided Narrative Technique among Children 273

Catherine Barrette, Bridget Haylock, and Danielle Mortimer

Key Words: Artworking, mourning, post-traumatic identity, trauma, resilience.

In mourning, our memories and hopes linked to the one weve

Tree (2008), oil on canvas, 10 X 6

Body 13 (2009), charcoal and gouache on paper, 16 X 20

5. Forming a Post-traumatic Identity

Legs (2010), digital print, 8 x 16

The second image shows my prosthesis extending from my socket to my knee

Lepore, S.J. and Revenson, T.A., Relationships between Posttraumatic Growth

Lichtenberg-Ettinger, B., Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger: Artworking, 1985-1999.

Merleau-Ponty, M., Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge, London, 2002.

Tennen, H. and Affleck, G., Personality and Transformation in the Face of

Catherine Barrette is a P hD candidate in Philosophy (Special Individualised

Peter Bray and Oliver Bray

Key Words: Autoethnography, consciousness, father, ghost, grief, loss,

I knew that Dad was going to die

This has been more difficult to I am in the business of meaning

He was a good man, a warrior, Samuel Bray, Gunner, 51st Field

But we try, and we must. That

You left me You left me