Abstract
In this chapter, I select abreactive moments in the novels and examine the ways through which they confirm the relationship between PTSD representation and postmodernism, and crucially the ways through which they contest this connection. This chapter focuses on the perceived compatibility between postmodern aesthetics and trauma representation, arguing that in Pynchon, Vonnegut, and Heller the narration of PTSD at its most climactic resists postmodern deconstructive form and gravitates towards epic recognition, tropologically echoing classical war writing, while simultaneously affirming postmodern epistemological anxieties.
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Notes
- 1.
In Part XVI of his Poetics, Aristotle distinguishes between different types of recognition in epic and tragic poetry, the most artistic of which he deems to be recognition by natural occurrences, or coincidences, and recognition by process of reasoning.
- 2.
Filippo Menozzi writes that “Usually, peripeteia involves a change that turns what seems to be a happy ending into misfortune downfall, for example, following the acquisition of new knowledge or a moment of recognition,” although he also notes that peripeteia is about the turning point and not necessarily about the downfall (134–135).
- 3.
In this chapter, I refer to both epic and tragic examples of recognition. My analysis follows Aristotle’s view that epic and tragic poetry are similar in all but narrative form, and that epic encompasses tragic poetry ( Aristotle Part V). The parallel between postmodern literature and epic is made because these forms are both narrated and not dramatized. For Aristotle, the genres of epic and tragedy are close, with their differences being merely contingent and not intentional (Wiggins 2019).
- 4.
There have been more politicized views of recollection and reminisce that lean closer to the concept of recognition, such as the view by Vincent Geoghegan, who argues that upon recollection, “memory traces are reactivated in the present, but there is never simple correspondence between past and present, because of all the intervening novelty. The power of the past resides in its complicated relationship of similarity/dissimilarity to the present. The tension thus created helps mould the new. The experience is therefore creatively shocking” (Geoghegan 58).
- 5.
As PTSD was entering the psychiatric lexicon, abreaction was described by APA as “An emotional release or discharge after recalling a painful experience that has been repressed because it was consciously intolerable. A therapeutic effect sometimes occurs through partial discharge or de-sensitization of the painful emotions and increased insight” (Glossary 1). For a historical overview of abreaction, see van der Hart and Brown 1992.
- 6.
In discussing the relationship between the epic and high narrative, Eugene Eoyang argues that this division can be detrimental to the perception of quality regarding non-Western narratives (43–64).
- 7.
On the relationship between epic and war, see The Cambridge Companion to War Writing, 72–74.
- 8.
For a brief review of the many views surrounding the postmodern condition of the Vietnam War, see Carpenter 2003.
- 9.
Aristotle writes: “The Epic has here an advantage, and one that conduces to grandeur of effect, to diverting the mind of the hearer, and relieving the story with varying episodes. For sameness of incident soon produces satiety, and makes tragedies fail on the stage” (Aristotle Part XXIV).
- 10.
Tancred and Clorinda’s story formed the foundation of Freud’s theorization of traumatic neurosis and repetition-compulsion, and, much later, was a turning, if controversial, point, in how literature and theory are implicated to show that the survivor of the traumatic event is haunted by the voice, or the screaming, “that witnesses a truth that [the perpetrator or the victim] himself [or herself] cannot fully know” (Caruth 3). In Torquato Tasso’s story, after killing Clorinda by mistake, Tancred ventures in a fit of rage in the forest and seemingly kills her again by slashing his sword at a tree. What if we were to consider Tancred’s hearing of the scream as an instance of recognition? Could it be that Tancred recognizes the degree to which he is a perpetrator by recognizing Clorinda and, in her scream, his own crime? Performing such a reading might point to a political aspect of recognition, where perpetrator and victim belong to the same collective plot.
- 11.
James Gourley points to Pynchon’s “repeated proleptic representation of 9/11” through that specific imagery (67).
- 12.
Teichoscopy originates in the Iliad, Book III, where Helen watches the war rage on from the walls of Troy (Lovatt 220).
- 13.
On a brief consideration of the ethical engagement of Slaughterhouse-Five, see Cacicedo 125–27.
- 14.
A recent biography of Slovik details his life and execution. See Richard Bak 2020. The claim for clemency is sharp irony considering that Calley had been granted clemency for crimes committed against civilians during the My Lai massacre.
- 15.
During World War II, Rome was bombed 51 times with a total loss of 7000 people (Baldoli and Knapp 38).
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Filippaki, I. (2021). Beyond PTSD’s Postmodern Aesthetics: Modes of Epic Recognition. In: The Poetics of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Postmodern Literature. Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67630-8_3
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