The Representations of Trauma and Trauma Coping Strategies in Grace Nichols’S Poetry
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Hacettepe University Graduate School of Social Sciences Department of English Language and Literature English Language and Literature THE REPRESENTATIONS OF TRAUMA AND TRAUMA COPING STRATEGIES IN GRACE NICHOLS’S POETRY Merve SARIKAYA-ŞEN Ph.D. Thesis Ankara, 2016 THE REPRESENTATIONS OF TRAUMA AND TRAUMA COPING STRATEGIES IN GRACE NICHOLS’S POETRY Merve SARIKAYA-ŞEN Ph.D. Thesis Ankara, 2016 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Prof Dr Huriye REİS for her invaluable comments, attentive re-reading, tremendous support, and generous criticism she has given me throughout this study. Her keen interest, willingness to share suggestions, and faith in me have greatly contributed to the completion of this dissertation. It is owing to her that I have learned how to be a hardworking and meticulous academician. One day, I hope to become as good a supervisor as she has been to me. I also would like to express my gratitude to Prof Dr Burçin EROL for her endless support and faith in me throughout my graduate studies at Hacettepe University. With her grace, energy, and endless expertise, she has always been one of the most important figures in my life—both academic and otherwise. I am also indebted to Prof Dr Susana ONEGA for her kind permission to carry out research work at Zaragoza University, Spain. She has always been willing to read and discuss this study. I would like to thank her warmly for her inspiring suggestions, feedback, and generosity throughout. Prof Dr Burçin EROL, Assoc. Prof Dr Hande SEBER, Assoc. Prof Dr Nurten BİRLİK, and Assist. Prof Dr Margaret J-M. SÖNMEZ have all read and examined this study. I am indebted to them for their constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement. I especially would like to thank Assist. Prof Dr Margaret J-M. SÖNMEZ for her sincere encouragement and insightful questions which have helped me consider this study from a different perspective. I owe many thanks to Assist. Prof Dr Nil KORKUT NAYKI, who has always been ready to encourage. Talking to her is always a source of motivation and inspiration. I also would like to extend my thanks to Assist. Prof Dr Selen AKTARİ SEVGİ for her support and trust in what I do. iv I also owe the greatest thanks to my parents and my brother. They have been a source of peace, comfort, and support throughout. My thanks also go to my friends, Gülşah GÖÇMEN, Silvia PELLICER-ORTIN, and Bilyana VANYOVA KOSTOVA for being good supporters and listeners all the time. I have always felt their positive energy while trying to write my thesis. I especially would like to thank my husband, Serkan ŞEN for always being there to listen and encourage. With his love, patience, humour, and energy, he has always found a way to help me survive. This work was supported by TUBITAK BIDEB (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) under Grant 2214/A, International Doctoral Research Fellowship Programme. I would like to express my acknowledgement to TUBITAK BIDEB for the scholarship I have benefited for six months (September, 2013-March, 2014). v ÖZET SARIKAYA-ŞEN, Merve. Grace Nichols’ın Şiirinde Travma ve Travmayla Başetme Yollarının Temsili. Doktora Tezi, Ankara, 2016. Bu çalışma, Grace Nichols’ın I is a Long Memoried Woman (1983), The Fat Black Woman’s Poems (1984), Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman (1989), Sunris (1996) ve Startling the Flying Fish (2005) koleksiyonlarında travmanın ve travmayla başetme yollarının ele alınmasında kademeli bir evrilme süreci olduğunu savunur. I is, The Fat ve Lazy Thoughts Afro-Karayipli insanların Karayipler’deki kölelikleri boyunca ve Birleşik Krallık’taki diasporik yaşamları süresince yaşadıkları travmayı ve travmayla başetme yollarını temsil ederken, Sunris ve Startling the Flying Fish Afro- Karayiplilerin travmasını daha yapıcı bir biçimde ele alır. I is’de travmatik yaşantıyı temsil etmek için dört farklı yöntem kullanılır; travmanın bastırılması, travmanın sürekli bir sorun olarak ortaya çıkması, travmanın sürekli dışa vurulması ve travmatik pastoral. Ayrıca, Nichols iki farklı travmayla başetme yöntemi sunar; travmadan hayal gücü ya da intikam fantazileriyle uzak durmak ve dini ve/ya da manevi inançlara dayanmak. The Fat ve Lazy Thoughts, Afro-Karayiplilere özgü travmatik geçmişin, İngiliz Afro- Karayip diasporasının 1960’lar sonrası yaşantılarındaki mirasını temsil eder. Bu koleksiyonlarda, Nichols nostaljiyi ve grotesk görüntüleri travmayla başetme mekanizması olarak kullanır. Sunris ve Startling the Flying Fish başlıklı koleksiyonlarda, Nichols Afro-Karayiplilerin travmatik geçmişlerine daha olumlayıcı bir tutumla yaklaşır. Sunris’te Trinidad ve Tobago Karnavalı, Startling the Flying Fish’te ise mitlere özgü yeniden anlatım yöntemi travmayla başetme yöntemi olarak kullanılır. Böylece, bu çalışma Nichols’ın şiirinin travmatik Afro-Karayip geçmişinin gölgesinde kalmayacak şekilde, bu geçmişi tanıdığını ve bu geçmişle uzlaşmaya yöneldiğini savunur. Anahtar Sözcükler Grace Nichols, I is a Long Memoried Woman, The Fat Black Woman’s Poems, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman, Sunris, and Startling the Flying Fish, travma, travmayla başetme. vi ABSTRACT SARIKAYA-ŞEN, Merve. The Representations of Trauma and Trauma Coping Strategies in Grace Nichols’s Poetry. Ph.D. Thesis, Ankara, 2016. This study argues that there is a gradual evolution of the treatment of trauma and trauma coping strategies in Grace Nichols’s I is a Long Memoried Woman (1983), The Fat Black Woman’s Poems (1984), Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman (1989), Sunris (1996), and Startling the Flying Fish (2005). I is, The Fat Black, and Lazy Thoughts represent Afro-Caribbean people’s traumatic experiences and their trauma coping mechanisms during their slavery in the Caribbean and later in their diasporic lives in Britain. Sunris and Startling the Flying Fish treat the Afro-Caribbean traumatic past in a more constructive way. I is presents four different ways of representing Afro-Caribbean people’s traumatic experiences; repression, haunting, acting out, and traumatic pastoral. Also, the collection presents two different strategies of coping with trauma; dissociation in the form of escape through imagination or revenge fantasies as well as religious beliefs and/or spirituality. The Fat and Lazy Thoughts represent the legacies of the Afro- Caribbean traumatic past in British Afro-Caribbean diaspora’s lives in the post 1960s. In these collections, Nichols employs nostalgia and grotesque images as trauma coping strategies. In Sunris and Startling the Flying Fish, Nichols adopts a more affirmative attitude towards the Afro-Caribbean traumatic past. In Sunris, the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, and, in Startling the Flying Fish, mythical retellings act as trauma healing mechanisms. Thus, this study indicates that Nichols’s poetry recognizes the Afro- Caribbean past as traumatic and moves towards a reconciliation with it and the construction of an envisaged future that includes but is not overshadowed by it. Keywords Grace Nichols, I is a Long Memoried Woman, The Fat Black Woman’s Poems, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman, Sunris, and Startling the Flying Fish, trauma, trauma coping. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS KABUL VE ONAY……………………………………………..…….…………….….i BİLDİRİM………..………………………………………………….……………....…ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS....................………………….………….…...……..….....iii ÖZET…………………................……….…………….…………….……………........v ABSTRACT…………………....................………………………………..……..…...vi TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………….………………........vii INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................1 CHAPTER I: TRAUMA AND TRAUMA COPING STRATEGIES IN A NON- WESTERN WORLD: I IS A LONG MEMORIED WOMAN…………..…………..37 CHAPTER II: TRAUMA AND ITS HEALING THROUGH NOSTALGIA AND GROTESQUE IN THE FAT BLACK WOMAN’S POEMS AND LAZY THOUGHTS OF A LAZY WOMAN………………………………………..………………….…….75 CHAPTER III: GOING BEYOND TRAUMA WITH CARNIVAL AND MYTHS IN SUNRIS AND STARTLING THE FLYING FISH…………….……..106 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………147 NOTES…………………………………………………………….……….................154 WORKS CITED……………..….....……………………………………………...…162 APPENDIX 1: ORIGINALITY REPORTS.............................................................182 APPENDIX 2: ETHICS BOARD WAIVER FORMS………………...…......…....184 1 INTRODUCTION The rise of interest in literary representations of trauma is a recent phenomenon associated with a surge of interest in trauma theory. Roger Luckhurst convincingly argues that today’s world is “saturated with trauma”, traces of which can be found in government inquiries, celebrity culture, academic monographs, and bestseller lists (2). Evidently, the last thirty years mark both the emergence of trauma studies and a great increase in the number of literary works dealing with trauma.1 Susana Onega and Jean- Michel Ganteau cogently argue that from the 1980s onwards, the representations of trauma in literature have noticeably augmented in a cumulative response to the dismal outcomes of the two world wars, the wars of decolonization, international terrorism, ethnic discriminations, and sexual and physical abuse (“Introduction: Traumatic Realism” 3). More importantly, Onega believes that the rise of interest in literary works representing trauma is a direct result of the belief in the agency of literary texts to heal trauma (“Affective Knowledge” 84). The application of trauma theory in understanding literary texts evinces diverse but at the same time potentially controversial principles, especially for the analysis of postcolonial