Unburying Silences: Trauma and Recuperative Narrative in Zoë Wicomb’s Playing in the Light

Abstract

This article argues that Wicomb’s novel is concerned with how to represent intergenerational trauma in South Africa. It suggests that an important element of that representation is the concept of “recuperation”. This includes the action of recuper­ating past events that have been repressed socially and psychologically, and also the use of that “unburying” as the first step towards recuperative healing. Wicomb investigates different ways of representing both the trauma and the recuperation. Her examination is itself a commentary on how South African literature may consider representing the past and using literature as a tool of healing. She engages with different symbolic functions as adequate means of representing trauma, in particular myth and allegory, suggesting that these commonly used tropes may be useful, but are ultimately not fully adequate for recuperative narrative. As an alternative, she explores a symbolic mode which is as “real” to ordinary, traumatic, experience as it is possible to be. The South African writer, she suggests, should not seek meaning in arcane or western mythological modes, but in the traumatic life offered by the experience of the every day, and in the objects that are strikingly “homely”, symbolic of the actions of those who have found ways to recuperate from trauma.

Opsomming

In hierdie artikel word daar geredeneer dat Wicomb se roman gemoeid is met hoe trauma wat verband hou met verskeie generasies in Suid Afrika, uitgebeeld word. Dit suggereer dat ’n belangrike element van daardie uitbeelding die konsep van “herstel” is. Dit sluit in die handeling om te herstel van vorige gebeurtenisse wat sosiaal en psigologies onderdruk is, en ook die gebruik van “ontgrawing” as die eerste stap na herstellende genesing. Wicomb ondersoek verskillende maniere om sowel die trauma as die herstel uit te beeld. Haar ondersoek is op sigself kommentaar van hoe Suid Afrikaanse literatuur kan oorweeg om die verlede uit te beeld en literatuur te gebruik as ’n genesingsmiddel. Sy is gemoeid met verskillende simboliese funksies as voldoende wyse om trauma uit te beeld, veral mite en allegorie, en suggereer dat hierdie algemeen gebruikte stylfigure nuttig kan wees, maar op die end nie heeltemal voldoende is vir herstellende narratief nie. As alternatief verken sy ’n simboliese gebruik wat so “werklik” is vir ’n gewone, traumatiese ervaring as wat moontlik is. Sy stel voor dat die Suid Afrikaanse skrywer nie betekenis moet soek in geheimsinnige of Westerse mitologiese gebruike nie, maar in die traumatiese lewe wat gebied word deur die ervaring van die alledaagse, en in die objekte wat treffend “huislik” is, simbolies van die handelinge van diegene wat maniere gevind het om te herstel van trauma.