This paper aims to investigate the role played by Hailsham, the fictional boarding school in Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go, in the mind of its central characters as seen through Gaston Bachelard’s conception of space. The article then aims to explore how the memory of Hailsham works as a coping mechanism for some of the novel’s characters, especially for Kathy. After a brief survey of Bachelard’s spatial criticism, the article then discusses the elements of intimacy in the space of Hailsham and portrays the boarding school as a oneiric house or a childhood home in Bachelard’s terms. By using an analytical method, this study offers an examination of two notions, that of memory and that of imagination, which are built upon the aspect of association and intimacy. Following the development of the plot of Never Let Me Go, the article sheds light on the role played by the so-called “cottages” in the shaping of these character’s relations to themselves, to each other, and to the outside world. This paper opens the door to other critics to read Never Let Me Go from the perspective of other spatial theorists like Mitchel Foucault, Henri Lefevbre, and Edward Soja.
This paper aims to investigate the role played by Hailsham, the fictional boarding school in Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go, in the mind of its central characters as seen through Gaston Bachelard’s conception of space. The article then aims to explore how the memory of Hailsham works as a coping mechanism for some of the novel’s characters, especially for Kathy. After a brief survey of Bachelard’s spatial criticism, the article then discusses the elements of intimacy in the space of Hailsham and portrays the boarding school as a oneiric house or a childhood home in Bachelard’s terms. By using an analytical method, this study offers an examination of two notions, that of memory and that of imagination, which are built upon the aspect of association and intimacy. Following the development of the plot of Never Let Me Go, the article sheds light on the role played by the so-called “cottages” in the shaping of these character’s relations to themselves, to each other, and to the outside world. This paper opens the door to other critics to read Never Let Me Go from the perspective of other spatial theorists like Mitchel Foucault, Henri Lefevbre, and Edward Soja.
The paper examines how the Lebanese American novelist Rabih Alameddine in I, The Divine (2002) shows the psychology of hybrid subject in Diaspora. Through creating a fictional space, the author sheds light on how Sarah suffers from fear of intimacy due to a combination of past traumatic experiences: The Lebanese Civil War, the rape scene, separation from her mother. Through a close reading of Alameddine's novel, the study does not only stress how fear of abandonment, fear of betrayal, and fear of low self-esteem intertwine to form a fear of intimacy in Sarah's emotional relations, but it also highlights how the protagonist unconsciously avoids attachment as a defense mechanism employing Freud's ideas.
The study intends to explore and analyze the role of corporeality in expressing earlier repressed traumatic events as manifested in Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye (1988). It shows that the protagonist, Elaine Risley, is imprisoned within the prison of her traumatic past memories that still live involuntarily in her present, shaping her language and behavior. It equally reveals that the connection between the protagonist’s body and her conscious self is damaged due to overwhelming effects of her trauma; triggering her body to unconsciously project those traumatic memories. The study specifically examines how Atwood’s protagonist’s trauma returns through the cracks of her consciousness in a form of auditory and verbal hallucinations and dissociation from herself. In order to probe the connection between soma and trauma in Atwood’s novel, the study leans on a distillation of psychological theorizations; particularly Sigmund Freud’s emphasis on the somatic expression of trauma. Through a textual analysis of Atwood’s novel, the study highlights that trauma is responsible for the protagonist’s anxiety, fear and loss of language, seeking to examine how Atwood’s protagonist strives to heal from her earlier traumatic memories through different mediums including art.
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