Trauma and the Dialectics of Recuperation in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25159/1753-5387/11001Keywords:
Gurnah, By the Sea, Dialectic, Hegel, PsychoanalysisAbstract
This article argues that Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea (2001) is unusual in contemporary fiction in that it suggests a way in which the lost past can be recuperated, both in the sense of being reclaimed and in the sense of healing past conflicts. The primary means by which this is shown to happen is through a dialectical encounter between the hitherto opposing groups or ideologies. The novel uses migrant distancing from the African past to ameliorate the pain experienced in that past and the close encounter between the two protagonists, Saleh Omar and Latif Mahmud, with long and bitter family histories, to explore how a dialectical relationship can be developed. By having to reframe past assumptions, each character must change not only his way of thinking about the other, but also about the past and himself. The theory used in the paper is mostly Hegelian, but also psychoanalytic.
References
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Newns, Lucinda. 2015. “Homelessness and the Refugee: Devalorizing Displacement in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing 51 (5): 506–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2015.1070007.
Rothberg, Michael. 2008. “Decolonizing Trauma Studies: A Response.” Studies in the Novel 40 (1/2): 224–34. https://doi.org/10.1353/sdn.0.0005.
Rushdie, Salman. 1991. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981–1991. London: Granta Press.
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Sorenson, Eli Park. 2010. Postcolonial Studies and the Literary: Theory, Interpretation and the Novel. London: Palgrave.
Steiner, Tina. 2010. “Writing ‘Wider Worlds’: The Role of Relation in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Fiction.” Research in African Literatures 41 (3): 124–35.
https://doi.org/10.2979/ral.2010.41.3.124.
Visser, Irene. 2015. “Decolonizing Trauma Theory: Retrospect and Prospects.” Humanities 4 (2): 250–65. https://doi.org/10.3390/h4020250.
Blake, William. (1868) 2014. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: A Song of Liberty. Project Gutenberg. Accessed September 13, 2022. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45315.
Brazzelli, Nicoletta. 2013. “Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea: A Paradigmatic Novel on the Contemporary Diasporic Condition.” Textus 26 (2): 117–34.
Caruth, Cathy, ed. 1995. Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Caruth, Cathy. 1996. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. (1817) 2013. Biographia Literaria. Project Gutenberg. Accessed September 13, 2022. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6081/6081-h/6081-h.htm.
Craps, Stef, and Gert Buelens. 2008. “Introduction: Postcolonial Trauma Novels.” In “Postcolonial Trauma Novels,” edited by Stef Craps and Gert Buelens, special issue, Studies in the Novel 40 (1/2): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1353/sdn.0.0008.
Derrida, Jacques. 2000. Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle Invites Jacques Derrida to Respond. Translated by Rachel Bowlby. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Fanon, Frantz. (1967) 2008. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Charles Markman. London: Pluto Press.
Farrier, David. 2008. “Terms of Hospitality: Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature 43 (3): 121–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021989408095242.
Felman, Shoshana, and Dori Laub. 1992. Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History. New York, NY: Routledge.
Forter, Greg. 2014. “Colonial Trauma, Utopian Carnality, Modernist Form: Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things.” In Contemporary Approaches in Literary Trauma Theory, edited by Michelle Balaev, 70–105. London: Palgrave. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137365941_4.
Freud, Sigmund. (1894) 2013. The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence. Read Books. Kindle edition.
Freud, Sigmund, and Joseph Breuer. 1895. Studies on Hysteria. e-book. Accessed 13 November 2021. https://www.sigmundfreud.net/studies-on-hysteria-pdf-ebook.jsp.
Freud, Sigmund. (1912) 2001. “The Dynamics of the Transference.” In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 12, translated and edited by James Strachey, 97–108. London: Hogarth Press.
Glissant, Édouard. 2010. Poetics of Relation. Translated by Betsy Wing. Ann-Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Gurnah, Abdulrazak. 2001. By the Sea. London: Bloomsbury.
Hall, Stuart. 1990. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” In Identity, Community, Culture, Difference, edited by Jonathan Rutherford, 222–37. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Hartman, Geoffrey. 1995. “On Traumatic Knowledge and Literary Studies.” New Literary History 26 (3): 537–63. https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.1995.0043.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. (1807) 2018. The Phenomenology of Spirit. Edited by Terry Pinkard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1873. Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences Third and Final Edition. Translated by William Wallace. Accessed October 10, 2021.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/introduction.pdf.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 2001. The Philosophy of History. Translated by J. Sibree. Ontario: Batoche Books.
Helff, Sissy. 2009. “Illegal Diasporas and African Refugees in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature 44 (1): 67–80.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0021989408101652.
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1979. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9342-6.
Luckhurst, Roger. 2008. The Trauma Question. London: Routledge.
Masterson, John. 2010. “Travel and/as Travail: Diasporic Dislocations in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea and Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature 45 (3): 409–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021989410376223.
Newns, Lucinda. 2015. “Homelessness and the Refugee: Devalorizing Displacement in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing 51 (5): 506–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2015.1070007.
Rothberg, Michael. 2008. “Decolonizing Trauma Studies: A Response.” Studies in the Novel 40 (1/2): 224–34. https://doi.org/10.1353/sdn.0.0005.
Rushdie, Salman. 1991. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981–1991. London: Granta Press.
Samuelson, Meg. 2013. “Narrative Cartographies, ‘Beautiful Things’ and Littoral States in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea.” English Studies in Africa 56 (1): 78–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/00138398.2013.780683.
Sorenson, Eli Park. 2010. Postcolonial Studies and the Literary: Theory, Interpretation and the Novel. London: Palgrave.
Steiner, Tina. 2010. “Writing ‘Wider Worlds’: The Role of Relation in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Fiction.” Research in African Literatures 41 (3): 124–35.
https://doi.org/10.2979/ral.2010.41.3.124.
Visser, Irene. 2015. “Decolonizing Trauma Theory: Retrospect and Prospects.” Humanities 4 (2): 250–65. https://doi.org/10.3390/h4020250.
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2022-09-13
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Goddard, Kevin, and Sheena Goddard. 2022. “Trauma and the Dialectics of Recuperation in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea”. Journal of Literary Studies 38 (3):15 pages. https://doi.org/10.25159/1753-5387/11001.
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