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- Title
TESTIMONY AND THE REPRESENTATION OF TRAUMA IN EVA FIGES' JOURNEY TO NOWHERE.
- Authors
Pellicer-Ortín, Silvia
- Abstract
The main aim of this study is to show that the triggering force for the contemporary destabilisation of traditional life-writing genres is trauma. In The Limits of Autobiography. Trauma and Testimony, Leigh Gilmore argues that the 'limit case autobiography' has been born out of the complicated relationship between trauma and testimony. I will prove that the autobiographical work of the British writer Eva Figes' Journey to Nowhere belongs in this category. The mixture of elements of autobiography, biography, memoir, history and testimony aims at working through the author-narrator's experiences of the Holocaust and denouncing the consequences of the creation of Israel after the Second World War. The analysis of the various testimonial levels and of the healing stages represented in the narration shows that it is the conflict between the representation of trauma and the self that has demanded the writing of this 'limit case autobiography'. Figes' testimonial project proves that the need to represent trauma has affected the production of fictional narratives and non-fictional testimonies, which has exposed the need to develop new critical approaches such as Trauma Studies.
- Subjects
JOURNEY to Nowhere (Book); FIGES, Eva, 1932-2012; EMOTIONAL trauma; AUTOBIOGRAPHY; HOLOCAUST, 1939-1945, in literature; 20TH century literature -- History &; criticism
- Publication
Atlantis (0210-6124), 2011, Vol 33, Issue 1, p69
- ISSN
0210-6124
- Publication type
Literary Criticism