چکیده:
Contemporary literary trauma theory indicates that experiencing trauma creates a fear that destroys identity. In fact, experiencing trauma creates a new identity for the victim. The representation of the trauma and the formation of the new identity for the victim are the building blocks of trauma novels. Due to the nature of trauma, it seems impossible to fully describe traumatic experiences by language. Considering Margaret Atwood’s Bodily Harm as a trauma novel, this article tries to magnify the traumatized bodies that are depicted in Atwood’s work. In this novel, Atwood compares traumatized bodies of her characters with colonized lands. In Bodily Harms,the traumatic moments are evident in the bodies of victims, violence, and politics. The wounded bodies tell a new story by employing verbal and nonverbal language. This article reveals that trauma is located at the intersection between body and mind, and body’s reaction to such traumatizing actions is keeping the record of trauma on the skin. Although traumatizing institutions try to conceal the memory of violence, the traumatized bodies attempt to open their experiences to the public with the objective of seeking for revival and testimony.
خلاصه ماشینی:
"Reading Traumatized Bodies in Margaret Atwood’s Bodily Harm Jalal Sokhanvar Islamic Azad University, Tehran Central Branch, Tehran, Iran Neda Sahranavard* Islamic Azad University, Tehran Central Branch, Tehran, Iran Received: July 28, 2012 Accepted: November 6, 2012 Contemporary literary trauma theory indicates that experiencing trauma creates a fear that destroys identity.
Considering Margaret Atwood’s Bodily Harm as a trauma novel, this article tries to magnify the traumatized bodies that are depicted in Atwood’s work.
By representing the traumatized bodies in her work, Margaret Atwood tries to engage her readers in observing the brutalities of the tyrannical governments.
The critics such as Caruth and Felman have stated in their work that literature is a unique way of representing trauma through which the belated authorization as well as witnessing of traumatic experience can occur.
The shattered memory of traumatized victims is parallel to the story telling technique of Margaret Atwood in Bodily Harm.
Rennie is asking the reader to experience the trauma she is suffering and witness the harm her body has endured.
She contends that it is important for the victim of trauma to tell the story of her traumatization even if he or she faces challenges in retelling the experience because "it is not known in words, but in the body" (p.
Atwood demonstrates the complicated relations between traumatic historical events, politics, colonization, memories, and the use of imagination to make trauma authentic for the readers."