https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i3.009
The Burden of Remembering: Exploring Trauma, Memory and the Past in Rivers Solomon’s The Deep
BIYAMOL GEORGE
Assistant Professor of English
Government College Kottayam, Kerala
DR LEKSHMI R NAIR
Professor of English
Government College Kottayam, Kerala
Abstract: The concepts of memory, history and trauma are widely used as tools in the analysis of literary works in contemporary times as they play a significant role in the construction of individual and collective identities. There are numerous literary works that discuss how individuals and groups remember their past and mould their identities based on their recollected memories. Written by Rivers Solomon along with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes, The Deep is a novella that memorializes the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the brutalities of the Middle Passage, by placing the focus on intergenerational memory and trauma caused by slavery. The narrative centres around wajinru, an underwater race born of the pregnant slave women thrown overboard the slave ships during the Middle Passage. Drawing on the theories of memory and trauma, the paper analyses how Solomon reimagines the Transatlantic Slave Trade and discusses the lasting impact of traumatic events not just on those who suffered the terrible experiences but on subsequent generations as well. The paper looks into the significance of memory and history in moulding individual and collective identity focussing on its curative and destructive powers. The complex way memory is dealt with in the narrative both as a form of violence and as a means of survival will also be discussed. Collective sharing of traumatic memories rather than collective forgetting or individual suffering is suggested as the solution to recover, heal and come to terms with a disturbing past. Though distressing and traumatic, the collective history, the trauma and its memory, shared by the members can unify a community bestowing them with a sense of identity and belonging.
Keywords: Memory, History, Trauma, Transatlantic Slave Trade, Middle Passage
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