The ‘recidivist tongue’: embracing an embodied language of trauma
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Authors
Murray, Jessica
Issue Date
2010
Type
Article
Language
en
Keywords
Yvonne Vera , Violence , Rape , Trauma , Fluidity , Touch , Antjie Krog
Alternative Title
Abstract
This article analyses selected excerpts from the writing of Antjie Krog and
Yvonne Vera in order to theorise strategies for overcoming the disjuncture
between the mind and the body that tends to result from violence. Both authors
repeatedly return to the bodies of their characters and they insist that psychic and
physical pain and trauma reside in the bodies of survivors as much as in their
psyches. Acknowledging this corporeal reality of violence circumvents any
opportunity to deny the totality of the impact that violence has on the lives of
survivors. This has implications for survivors as well as for those who read or hear
about violence. By developing an embodied language of violence and trauma,
these authors offer new and more comprehensive ways of dealing with traumatic
violations. When survivors reclaim their bodies, they are also able to utilise their
bodies’ capacity for healing and comfort. When readers, and society at large, are
unable to deny the harm that violence does to bodies, they are compelled to
recognise the reality of survivors’ suffering. The article illustrates that the body
can speak and that we ignore its voice at our peril.
Description
This is a pre-print version of an article by Jessica Murray.
Citation
Murray, J. 2010, 'The 'recidivist tongue': embracing an embodied language of trauma', Social Dynamics, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 488-503.
Publisher
Routledge
License
© Taylor & Francis
Journal
Volume
Issue
PubMed ID
DOI
ISSN
0253-3952