EXAMINING TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE AND CULTURAL MEMORY: A PSYCHOANALYTICAL READING OF MICHAEL ONDAATJE’S WARLIGHT

Abstract

There is a space in post-war life for memories, introspection, retrospection, foreshadowing, flashback, and terrible remembrances tinged with pain, wound, and trauma. These psychological effects of war, as well as distressing situations result trauma, which is the reaction to a horrific event that cannot be fully comprehended in the victim’s daily life. In this context, the Sri Lankan-born Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje is well-known of depicting the psychological state of the characters in his literary works, in which, they have complex personalities and linked stories about their remarkable lives, as shown in one of his most famous novels, Warlight (2018). Thus, the current dissertation aims at examining traumatic experiences and cultural memory through Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytical perspective in Ondaatje’s Warlight. It also seeks to address the Protective Shield against Stimuli, Traumatic Neurosis and the returning of past events in the subconscious mind of trauma victims. In particular, it emphasizes the postcolonial period's status of children like Nathaniel and Rachel who were shell-shocked as a result of catastrophic circumstances such as the Second World War. In this research, the descriptive and analytical methods are employed to analyze and describe the novel's events as well as the character's psyche. Subsequently, this study reveals that neglecting children's effects of wars and violence can lead to the appearance of serious mental issues which may remain with them their whole lives, as it is the case for Rachel’s epilepsy and Nathaniel’s being stuck in the past. In addition, other Ondaatje’s victims reaction to trauma differs from one another; in which, some would confront their harsh experiences like Nathaniel while others would bury these difficult events in their minds in order to forget and move on like Rachel.