Narrativizing memory to form identity: A Study of Gayl Jones’s Corregidora

Abstract

Trauma is one of the sources that haunts an individual’s present. It has its existence in the past which continue to occur in the form of memory. In Jones’s Corregidora, traumatic memory of the past has achieved the form of identity. The idea of formation of one’s recognition is associated with the fact that people cannot escape their past. This is the formation of memory which has become the source of family tradition in the Corregidora family. The female generation of the Corregidora wants to continue the historical fact that they are the incestuous product of a White Portuguese Master who impregnated the great-grandma and then, the grandma and hence the offspring in the Corregidora family. The formation of identity of the Corregidora is associated with the bitter historical fact; unalterable or changeable. Hence, it has remained with four generations of Corregidora as a part and partial of the tradition continued to this day. The Corregidora are one such family who is the victim of haunting past. Nevertheless, this bitter memory has become one of the sources of their identity.