The poet as judge: Assessing cultural and individual trauma in Jean Arasanayagam's Apocalypse '83 and Reddened Water Flows Clear

Abstract

This paper considers the poetry of the largely overlooked Sri Lankan author Jean Arasanayagam, through the framework of trauma and trauma theory. Trauma theory is engaged through Arasanayagam's positioning of the authorial and narrator's voice in her poems. This positioning argues that her poetic voice speaks as a “poetic judge”, and that this authority allows it to comment on the act of ethnically marking and committing acts of violence against individuals. In doing so it both reinforces and questions tenets of trauma theory. The paper begins by outlining the concept of “poet as judge” with the assistance of Martha C. Nussbaum's work. It then moves into a discussion of cultural trauma, and an elaboration on individual trauma. The paper finishes by engaging with Elaine Scarry's call to “dis-imagine ourselves”, concluding that Arasanayagam's poetry can be seen as an example of “dis-imagining” and thus complicates notions of victimization and aggression within a Sri Lankan context. She refuses to mark victimization and violence along ethnic lines and thus disturbs Sri Lankan nationalist discourse.

Keywords:

• ethnic identity
• trauma
• dis-imagining
• violent poetry
• Jean Arasanayagam

Acknowledgements

This paper would not have come into existence without the encouragement of my tutor, Minoli Salgado. She introduced me to Arasanayagam's work and encouraged me to turn a simple term paper into an article. I am also indebted to my other MA tutors, Denise DeCaires Narain, Steph Newell and Mat Dimmock, who pushed me to be a better student and writer. Finally, this paper would not look the way it does without the persistent and careful editing of Bridie France, Beatrice Bazell and my father, Richard Schwenz.

Notes

1. Black July, the name used of the anti-Tamil pogrom and violence in Sri Lanka, began on 23 July 1983. The violence is believed to have been a response to the Tamil Tigers’ ambush of 13 Sri Lankan army soldiers and it precipitated a larger armed conflict between the Sinhalese-dominated government and Tamil militants. Many people, including Arasanayagam, were forced to flee their homes during this time. The civil war officially ended in 2009.

2. Scholars argue the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict is intrinsically linked to Sinhalese and Tamil beliefs in a predestined, historical inheritance that entitles them to a level of national sovereign power (Ismail; Salgado; Sarvan). This power is contingent upon ethnic purity and is linked to understanding national identity. Sri Lankan politics is therefore diverse but divided. Consequently, Arasanayagam’s work is contested by her peers (Goonetilleke and others) due to her Burgher heritage and writing in English.

3. Some might argue that the Apocalypse ’83 poems lack ethnic markers because Arasanyagam was writing for a community familiar with the victims and aggressors of the 1983 conflict. While this may be partially true, I would argue it should not preclude further discussion of her political and poetic intentions as it does not sufficiently credit her intervention into Sri Lankan nationalist discourses.

4. It should be noted that Arasanayagam’s prose pieces don’t erase ethnic markers. Salgado argues this difference emerges as a result of genres’ conventions (86). She notes: The reification of territory that has dominated the discursive production of the nation since the start of the civil war is thus not simply rejected by allegorical evasion (as it is in much of her poetry) but [in her prose] is directly absorbed to define a new cartography – one that acknowledges the internalization of territorial impositions within the migrant subject so that a refugee camp becomes a ‘mental state’. (89)Although her prose work and poetry approach nationalist discourse differently, their common theme is a constant intervention into and questioning of that discourse. Studying trauma in her prose work may yield different conclusions about her engagement with it and with nationalism, but these should not discount the approach of her poems.