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Traumatic memory in Eve Ensler’s The apology (2019)
ID Domines Veliki, Martina (Author)

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Abstract
Eve Ensler’s memoir The Apology (2019) traces Ensler’s growing up with an abusive father who raped her during her childhood and never apologized for the damage he caused. Ensler, now a successful woman in her sixties, thus imagines her father’s apology and details everything she was going through. Unlike Caruth’s theory of traumatic aporia where painful experiences are inherently contradictory and can never be grasped completely, Ensler’s act of writing the unspoken words of her father points to the fact that trauma can be healed through writing. As Richard McNelly and Joshua Pederson claim, it is precisely through writing that the victim can gain control over the act of recalling, helping the survivor to remake the self. Thus, in Ensler’s memoir, Caruth’s traumatic amnesia is replaced by the power of remembered and written detail to enact healing. This essay addresses issues of incest and rape through the lens of more recent trauma theory by paying attention to an imagined act of the perpetrator’s apology. By evoking pseudo memories, Ensler tries to understand her childhood trauma and how it affected her as a person. She establishes herself as a truth-teller and the survivor of intergenerational trauma with the ability to break the cycle of abuse, which is exactly what she does by writing The Apology.

Language:English
Keywords:concept of time, memory, childhood trauma/pain, dissociation, art as a form of self-expression
Work type:Article
Typology:1.01 - Original Scientific Article
Organization:FF - Faculty of Arts
Publication status:Published
Publication version:Version of Record
Publication date:01.01.2025
Year:2025
Number of pages:Str. 49-60
Numbering:Vol. 22, no. 2
PID:20.500.12556/RUL-180364 This link opens in a new window
UDC:821.111(73).09-312.6Ensler E.
ISSN on article:1581-8918
DOI:10.4312/elope.22.2.49-60 This link opens in a new window
COBISS.SI-ID:265799427 This link opens in a new window
Publication date in RUL:06.03.2026
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Downloads:148
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Record is a part of a journal

Title:ELOPE : English language overseas perspectives and enquiries
Shortened title:ELOPE
Publisher:Slovensko društvo za angleške študije, Slovensko društvo za angleške študije, Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani, Založba Univerze v Ljubljani
ISSN:1581-8918
COBISS.SI-ID:212890112 This link opens in a new window

Licences

License:CC BY-SA 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
Link:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Description:This Creative Commons license is very similar to the regular Attribution license, but requires the release of all derivative works under this same license.

Secondary language

Language:Slovenian
Title:Travmatični spomin v The Apology (2019) Eve Ensler
Abstract:
Avtobiografija Eve Ensler The Apology (2019) opisuje njeno odraščanje z nasilnim očetom, ki jo je v otroštvu posilil in se nikoli ni opravičil za škodo, ki jo je povzročil. Zato si avtorica, zdaj uspešna ženska pri šestdesetih, predstavlja očetovo opravičilo, v katerem podrobno opisuje vse, kar je prestala. Za razliko od Caruthove teorije travmatične aporije, po kateri so boleče izkušnje v osnovi protislovne in jih ni mogoče v celoti dojeti, Eve Ensler z zapisovanjem neizrečenih besed svojega očeta pokaže, da je travmo mogoče pozdraviti s pisanjem. Kot trdita Richard McNelly in Joshua Pederson lahko žrtev prav z pisanjem pridobi nadzor nad spominjanjem, kar ji pomaga ponovno oblikovati svoje sebstvo. Tako v avtoričinih spominih Caruthovo travmatsko amnezijo nadomešča moč zapomnjenih in zapisanih podrobnosti, ki omogočajo ozdravitev. Ta esej obravnava vprašanja incesta in posilstva skozi prizmo novejše teorije travme, pri čemer se osredotoča na domišljijsko opravičilo storilca. Z vzbujanjem »psevdo« spominov poskuša avtorica razumeti svojo otroško travmo in kako je ta vplivala nanjo. S pisanjem knjige The Apology se avtorica vzpostavi kot vir resnice in kot žrtev travme, ki je sposobna prekiniti začarani krog zlorab.

Keywords:pojem časa, spomin, otroška travma/bolečina, disociacija, umetnost kot oblika izražanja sebe

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