Working through of Trauma in Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory

Abstract

This researchentitled“WorkingThroughof traumainEdwidge Danticat’s novel Breath, Eyes,Memory”is thestory of a young Haitian-American woman Sophie Caco, who tries to reconstruct her identity and to find a way to recover from her past experiences.The maincharacters in the novel suffer from a diverserange of different traumas, which together construct the trauma of black Haitian people, which may, therefore, be understood as a collective accumulation of the traumas, their sources and effects. In the novel the charactersare being held prisoners by their own memories of the traumatic conflicts they have endured, and they seem to be unable to let go of these traumatic memories. Theories of trauma areapplied in order to study the effects and sources of thetraumas of the main characters. Trauma isindigestible everywhere. Characters are surviving their life by verbalizing or narativization. In the novel characters narativize to negotiate their trauma.