Overlapping Traumas: Revisiting Trauma in Post-apocalyptic World of Anna Kavan’s Ice

Year 2024, Issue: 52, 137 - 148

Mehtap Tunahan , İsmail Avcu

Abstract

This article offers a critical exploration of Anna Kavan’s Ice which includes a literary representation of trauma and its correlation with the concept of post-apocalypse. Establishing a preliminary dialogue between post-apocalyptic and trauma narratives, it investigates the individual and post-apocalyptic trauma both separately and holistically through a single text. The abandonment trauma and the traumatic glacial apocalypse create an interrelated discourse of post-apocalyptic trauma that encompasses changes on the protagonist of the novel and collectivities. Following Hobbesian discussion of social contract together with Golding’s Lord of the Flies, apocalyptic trauma and its symptoms are traced as disturbing demonstration of humanity’s primitive urges in the absence of social, religious, political, and moral orders. The analysis of the protagonist’s unrelenting quest and obsessive psychology through Lacanian concept objet a allows the discussion to diversify to address the individual trauma. Instead of casting Kavan’s novel as purely trauma narrative or post-apocalyptic account, this article reads her novel in a focused attentiveness to analyse different types of trauma and their merge with each other.

Keywords

Anna Kavan, Ice, Trauma Narrative, Post-apocalyptic Narrative, Post-apocalyptic Trauma

Örtüşen Travmalar: Anna Kavan’ın Buz Romanındaki Kıyamet Sonrası Dünyada Travmayı Yeniden Ele Almak

Abstract

Bu makale, travmanın edebi temsilini ve kıyamet sonrası kavramıyla ilişkisini ele alan Anna Kavan’ın Buz adlı romanının eleştirel bir incelemesini sunmaktadır. Kıyamet sonrası ve travma anlatıları arasında bir ön diyalog kurarak bireysel ve kıyamet sonrası travmayı tek bir metin üzerinden hem ayrı ayrı hem de bütünsel olarak incelemektedir. Terk edilme travması ve travmatik buzul kıyameti, romanın baş kahramanında ve topluluklarda değişikliklere sebep olan kıyamet sonrası travmaya dair birbiriyle ilişkili bir söylem yaratmaktadır. Golding’in Sineklerin Tanrısı adlı romanı ile birlikte Hobbes’un toplumsal sözleşmesi üzerine gerçekleştirilen tartışmanın akabinde, kıyamet travması ve semptomları, sosyal, dini, politik ve ahlaki düzenin yokluğunda insanlığın ilkel dürtülerinin rahatsız edici bir göstergesi olarak ele alınmaktadır. Kahramanın amansız arayışının ve takıntılı psikolojisinin Lacan’ın nesne a kavramı üzerinden analizi, tartışmanın bireysel travmayı ele almasına izin vererek çeşitlenmesine olanak tanır. Bu makale, Kavan’ın romanını salt travma anlatısı ya da kıyamet sonrası anlatım olarak ele almak yerine, romanı farklı travma türlerini ve bu travmaların birbirleriyle iç içe geçişlerini analiz etmeye odaklanmış bir dikkatle okumaktadır.

Keywords

Anna Kavan, Buz, Travma Anlatısı, Kıyamet Sonrası Anlatı, Kıyamet Sonrası Travma

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