AFTER THE FACT:CONTEMPORARY FEMINIST FICTION AND HISTORICAL TRALWA Heidi Tiedemann A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto C Copyright by Heidi Tiedemann 7001 National Ciitaiy Bibliothèque nationale du Canada Wiomand Accpiimet "i"Bib iographic Services services bibliographiques 385 Weiîingîon Street 395, nie WeUingtorr OItawaON K1AW -ON KlAW Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non excluive licence dowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distritute or seU reproduire, prêter, distdmer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfichelnlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. After the Fact: Contemporary Feminist Fiction and Historieal Trauma by Heidi Tiedemann Graduate Department of English University of Toronto Doctor of Philosophy, 200 1 During the 1980s and 1990s, novels dealing with past traumatic expenences in both the public and private spheres appeared with some regularity. These works depict historical atrocities, including slavery and genocide. as well as varying fotms of interpersonal violence, and notably childhood sexual abuse. They draw on the growing body of interdisciplinary research and theory which has corne to be known as trauma studies, an area of concem heavily inflected by psychoanalytic approaches to memory and narration. Many trauma novels take the form of historical fiction, narrated in the first-person by fictional or fictionalized survivors whose accounts bear witness to the need for violent actions to be admitted into public consciousness. This dissertation proposes that concems about the construction of identities. chiefly in terms of gender. race, and sexuality, have been grafted ont0 past events, creating a testimonial and explicitly feminist form of fiction authored by women writers fiom a range of cultural backgrounds. Ttnse novels frrquently deai with wornen survivors, highlighting the relationships between narration, gender, and trauma The works 1 examine-Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace. Nora Okja Keller's Comfort Woman. Joy Kopawa's Obasan. Edwidge Danticat's The Farming of Bones and Julia Alvarez's In the Time of the Butternies-stress that both trauma and recovery have collective as well as individual dimensions. These novels are explicitly pedagogical, teaching lessons about histoncal events and emphasizing the need for an ethical engagement with the past. They make clairns on readen to function as the receivers of painful and complicated stories. in order to assist in the creation of histoncal rnemory. These five Canadian and American novels respond to recent questions raised in a variety of disciplines and contexts about the nature of histoncal storytelling. With the exception of Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace. they counter the dorninance of postrnodem approaches to histoncal recreation. focussing instead on the significance of telling apparently transparent, if not always verifiable, truths about the past. These works are acutely interested in the telling of trauma as a socially constntcted and rneaningful act. one requiring the active participation of bath a witness and ar. engaged listener. Reciting accounts of trauma, and listening to these homfjmg narratives, are the primary activities depicted by the novels I study. .. III The dificult tasks of reading, listening, and questioning stressed by the five novels 1 examine in this dissertation have been ably undertaken by the memben of my dissertation cornmittee. Ji11 Matus has been an exemplary supervisor. and has read more chapter drafts than anyone should have to. with close attention to style as well as substance. This project could not have been completed without her assistance. Mary Nyquist and Magdalene Redekop havs been enthsiastic and helpful readers and have oflered important suggestions about additional resources for this study. Al1 three have provided me with valuable exarnples of feminist scholarship and teaching. My interest in this material was encouraged by a graduate seminar with Linda Hutcheon. and by undergraduate study of feminist literature and theory with Heather Mwray. Ross Chambers's seminar on witnessing literature. O ffered by the Graduate Department of Comparative Literature, provided a wealth of new approaches and theoretical puzzles. Pani McGillicuddy offered suggestions for reading, and helped ground this study in lived experience and reflection. Friends and family members have offered a variety of material, emotional, and intellectual resources that have sustained me throughout this project. 1 am especially grateful to Christopher Darroch, Ann and Gordon Darroch, Marlisa Tiedemann, Donna Frame, Joshua Frame, Abigail Levin, Ioanna Norland, Carellin Brooks, Jenni fer Andrews, Jonathan Colvin, Aurelea Mahood, Melisse Gelula, Ami KotIer. and Liza Coopeman. Graduate school has been a pleasure because of Pavlina Radia, Scott Rayter, Sarah Winters, Marc Plamondon, Sarah Henstra, Dana Dragunoiu and Knstina Fagan. Funding was provided by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowships, and by a University of Toronto Open Fellowship. Table of Contents Introduction Chapter One Contemporary Theones of Literary Testimony and Witnessing Chapter Two Hysteria and Traumatic Testimony in the Therapeutic Encounter: Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace Chapter Three Transgenerational Trauma and Impossible Mouming in Joy Kogawa's Obasan and Nora Okja Keller's Comfort Woman Chapter Four Swiving to Tell the Story: Julia Alvarez's In the Time of the Butterfiies and Edwidge Danticat's The Farminp of Bones Conclusion Works Consulted "In a feamil nation. public sorrow was stamped down by the climate of uncertainty. If a father protested a son's death. it was feared another farnily member would be killed. If people you knew disappeared, there was a chance they might stay alive if you did not cause trouble. This was the scarring psychosis in the country. Death. loss, was 'unfinished.' so you could not walk through it. -Michael Ondaatje. Anil's Ghost '" Well. in a very few years.' she began nervously. 'the people who lived through the Third Reich will al1 be dead. And when the people who expenenced an event are no longer walking the planet, it's as if that event never existed at dl. There'll be books and museums and monuments, but things move so fast now. the only difference between fantasy and history is living people."' -EmiIy Prager, Eve's Tattoo "Any explanation of war neurosis must account for the fact that this apparently intensely masculine life of war and danger and hardship produced in men the sarne disorders that wornen suffered From in peace." -Pat Barker, Regeneration "We live in a period in which memory of al1 kinds. including the sort of larger memory we cal1 history, is being cailed into question. For history as for the individual. forgetting can be just as convenient as remembering, and remembering what was once forgotten cm be distinctly unforgettable. As a rule, we tend to remember the awful things done to us. and to forget the awful things we did." -Muguet Atwood, in Search of Alias Grace This dissertation studies the efforts of five Amencan and Canadian women novelists to use histoncal fiction as a means of testifying to traumatic events of the past. Through my readings of these works. 1 examine connections between therapeutic discomes of psychic trauma. contemporary histoncal fiction. and feminist fiction and theory. These novels depict the narration of the past as a subjective, constructed act. one affiliated with Shoshana Felman's suggestion that literatlue cm hction as testimony, as a perfomative utterance of trauma.' Women's contemporary historical fiction carefully scrutinizes events that have received less attention in oficial historica1 narratives. These novels present a kind of counter-memory. broadening readers' awarenoss of the tcxtured complexity of the put, and of the gaps and omissions in the historical record. in the novels 1 examine, female characters stniggle to know and tell painful stones, even while they acknowledge that historical amnesia and silence are powerfully appealing alternatives. I have selected works that illustrate what 1 perceive to be the most significant elements of contemporary testimonial fictions. This dissertation focusses on the processes of recalling and "telling" trauma to a skeptical, reiuctant, or overly eager listener, and on the cornplkatecl desassigned to muma surviuors, who are alternately invested with ethical and politicai authority, or marginalized. The novels 1 study highlight the intersection of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and nationality in the 1 Felman's influentid theory of literary testimony is discussed in Chapter 1. Along with her CO-writer,Dori Laub, Felman holds that the testimonial act takes place between two people, speakedwriter and listenedreader, who engage in an ethically motivated exchange in order to work through a past traumatic