THE EXPERIENCES OF SLAVERY, RACISM AND TRAUMA IN CARYL PHILLIPS'S NOVEL CAMBRIDGE Cover Image

CARYL PHILLIPS’İN CAMBRIDGEROMANINDA KÖLELİK, IRKÇILIK VE TRAVMA DENEYİMLERİ
THE EXPERIENCES OF SLAVERY, RACISM AND TRAUMA IN CARYL PHILLIPS'S NOVEL CAMBRIDGE

Author(s): Mehmet GÜNEŞ
Subject(s): Psychology, Theoretical Linguistics, British Literature
Published by: Namık Kemal Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi
Keywords: Caryl Phillips; Cambridge; trauma; slavery; racism;

Summary/Abstract: This study aims to analyze trauma generated by the experiences of slavery and racism in English writer Caryl Phillips’s forth novel Cambridge. It explores narrative strategies employed by Phillips to show the effects of slavery and racism, shedding light on how the past lives in the collective memory of the present. The traumatic effects of racism and slavery on people are focused. Phillips gives slavery and racism from the colonizer and the colonized’s perspectives. Cambridge’s female protagonist Emily depicts slavery and racism through a colonial approach, but Cambridge depicts them through a postcolonial approach. Traumatic experiences of the past never chase characters. It is stated that racism and slavery the main characters experience are traumatic and contribute to other traumas they manifest. The traumatic analysis of Cambridge in this essay evidences that traumas of the characters cause fragmentation in their subjectivities and a kind of cultural and identity disorder.

  • Issue Year: 8/2020
  • Issue No: 16
  • Page Range: 231-248
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: Turkish