İnsan ruhunun yağmacıları: Edebi travma teorisi bağlamında Abdulrazak Gurnah’ın Gravel Heart romanının bir eleştirisi

Year 2022, Issue: 29, 861 - 876, 21.08.2022

Abdulkadir Ünal

https://doi.org/10.29000/rumelide.1164902

Abstract

Gravel Heart (2017), 2021 Nobel Edebiyat Ödülü'ne layık görülen Tanzanya doğumlu İngiliz romancı Abdulrazak Gurnah’ın dokuzuncu postkolonyal romanıdır. Onun edebi söyleyişinin bir parçası olan roman, travmatik göçmen öykülerinin ait olma (olmama), asimilasyon, yerelleşme, değerlerin ve normların melezliği ve keskin bir aradalık duygusu açısından derinlemesine incelenmesini araştırıyor. Anavatanının postkolonyal ortamında doğan göçmen kahraman, batılı yöneticilerin veya onların temsilcilerinin, kaçınılmaz bir utanç ve suçluluk duygusu gibi nörolojik kaygıları beraberinde getiren maddi ve manevi müsaderelerine maruz kalır. Memleketinin ve kişilerarası ilişkilerinin yozlaştığı ve sömürge hegemonyalarının yerel işbirlikçileri tarafından suiistimal edildiği romanında açıkça görülmektedir. Başlangıçta teslim olmasının bir ödülü olarak İngiltere’ye göç etme şansına sahip olan anlatıcı, anavatanında yıllarca süren çekişmelerden sonra bile böyle yağmalanmış bir dünyada kendi varlığını sorgular. Bu çalışmada, Abdulrazak Gurnah’ın Gravel Heart'taki “insan ruhunun yağmacıları” teması, postkolonyal romanlar çerçevesinde aşırı travmatik stresten kaynaklanan anlamı çıkarımlamak için parçalanma, dil manipülasyonu, tekrarlama ve metinlerarasılık gibi edebi araçlara göre travma anlatılarını tanımayı amaçlayan edebi travma kuramı ışığında ele alınacaktır.

Keywords

Abdulrazak Gurnah, Gravel Heart, kimlik, edebi travma teorisi, insan ruhunun yağmacıları

Plunderers of the human spirit: A criticism of Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Gravel Heart in terms of literary trauma theory

Abstract

Gravel Heart (2017) is the ninth postcolonial novel of Tanzanian-born British novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah who was awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature. Being a part of his literary diction, his novel explores in-depth justification of traumatic migrant stories with neurological symptoms like sense of (un)belonging, assimilation, naturalisation, the hybridity of values and norms, and a keen sense of in-betweenness. Born in the postcolonial setting of his hometown, the migrant protagonist is exposed to the material and spiritual confiscations of the western rulers or their representatives which brings about neurotic concerns like an inevitable sense of shame and quilt. It is clear in his novel that his hometown and interpersonal relations were corrupted and abused by the local contributors of the colonial hegemonies. Having a chance to emigrate to England as a seemingly reward for his surrendering at the beginning, the narrator questions his use in such a plundered world even after years of wranglings back in his motherland. In this study, the theme of ‘plunderers of the human spirit’ in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Gravel Heart will be discussed in terms of literary trauma theory which aims to legitimise trauma narratives by literary devices such as fragmentation, language manipulation, repetition, and intertextuality to extrapolate the meaning arising from extreme traumatic stress within the frame of postcolonial novels

Keywords

Abdulrazak Gurnah, Gravel Heart, identity, literary trauma theory, plunderers of the human spirit

References

• Aina, T. A. (1999). West and Central Africa: Social Policy for Reconstruction and Development. In D. Morales-Gómez. (Ed.) Transnational Social Policies - The New Development Challenges of Globalization,( pp.69-88). Earthscan Publications Ltd.
• Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., & Tiffin, H. (2000) Post-Colonial studies: Key concepts. London: Routledge.
• Asiama, S. O. (1990). In Amis, P. Amis, L. (Eds.). Land for housing the urban poor in Africa- Some policy options, Housing Africa's Urban Poor (pp. 239-252), Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.
• Balaev, M. (2008). Trends in literary trauma theory. Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Studies, 41(2), 149-166.
• Balaev, M. (2014). Literary Trauma Theory Reconsidered. In M. Balaev (Ed.). Contemporary Approaches in Literary Trauma Theory (1-14). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Brison, S. J. (1997). Outliving oneself: Trauma, memory, and personal identity. In D. T. Meyers (Ed.), Feminists rethink the self (pp. 12–39). Boulder, CO: Westview.
• Caruth, C. (1996). Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press.
• Caruth, C. (Ed.). (1995). Trauma: Explorations in memory. Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Caruth, C. (2014). Parting Words: Trauma, Silence, and Survival. intervalla: platform for intellectual exchange 2, Trauma, Abstraction, and Creativity. (15)20-33.
• East, B. (2017, May 09). ‘sometimes it takes a long time for ideas to reach maturity’, says writer Abdulrazak Gurnah. The National. https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/sometimes-it-takes-a-long-time-for-ideas-to-reach-maturity-says-author-abdulrazak-gurnah-1.58580.
• Erikson, K. (1995). Notes on Trauma and Community. In C. Caruth (Ed.) Explorations in Memory. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press.
• Freud, S. (1921). Jenseits des Lustprinzips (2nd Ed). Wien: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag.
• Guignery, V. (Ed). (2009). Voices and Silence in the Contemporary Novel in English. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• Gurnah, A. (2017). Gravel Heart. London: Bloomsbery.
• Hagerty, B. M., Williams, R. A., & Oe, H. (2002). Childhood antecedents of adult sense of belonging. Journal of Clinical Psychology,58(7), 793– 801. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.2007.
• Hartman, G. (2003). Trauma Within the Limits of Literature, European Journal of English Studies, (7)3, 257-274, DOI: 10.1076/ejes.7.3.257.27984.
• Iqbal, R. (2019). Belonging, Colonialism and Arrival, Wasafiri, (34)4, 34-40 40, DOI: 10.1080/02690055.2019.1635756.
• Ross, D. W. (2007). Oedipus in Derry: Seamus Deane’s “Reading in the Dark.” New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua, 11(1),25–41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20558129
• Steiner, T. (2021, Oct. 9). ‘Nobel winner Abdulrazak Gurnah’s fiction traces small lives with wit and tenderness’. The Conversation Academic rigour, journalistic flair. https://theconversation.com/nobel-winner-abdulrazak-gurnahs-fiction-traces-small-lives-with-wit-and-tenderness-169585.
• Varkas, MSW, T. (1998). Childhood Trauma and Posttraumatic Play, Journal of Analytic Social Work, 5(3),9-50. Tandfonline, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J408v05n03_02.
• Visser, I. (2017). Herrero, Dolores and Sonia Baelo-Allue (eds.), The Splintered Glass: Facets of Trauma in the Post-Colony and Beyond. Cross Cultures 136. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2011. The ESSE Messenger, 26(2), 59-63.
• Whitehead, A. (2004). Trauma Fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Wittgenstein, L. (1974). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Translated by D.F. Pears and B.F. McGuinness. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul