Trauma Culture: The Politics of Loss in Media and Literature by E. Ann Kaplan is another book that had an overabundance of colorful tabs along the right edge indicating the multiple areas of interest. Kaplan begins with a discussion about 9-11 and trauma, stating “as Freud pointed out long ago, how one reacts to a traumatic event depends on one’s individual psychic history, on memories inevitably mixed with fantasies of prior catastrophes, and on the particular cultural and political context within which a catastrophe takes place, especially how it is ‘managed’ by institutional forces” (1). I believe that this statement describes quite well the manner in which the trauma associated with the oppressive and racist culture of the United States is one that inflicts trauma upon an individual, but this trauma can be compounded by the cultural memory of slavery and violence against African Americans through out history. This is further validated as Kaplan discusses family trauma, as described by on the same page as it is portrayed in film: “Some of the films and other texts I study deal with World War II and the Holocaust, but the narratives involve not internees or soldiers buy relatives of internees or women and children living in terror because of World War II. Other films are about descendants of indigenous peoples in postcolonial contexts, who are also living in terror still after centuries of displacement and attempted annihilation. Such daily experiences of terror may not take the shape of classic trauma suffered by victims or survivors, but to deny these experiences as traumatic would be a mistake. Instead, I extend the concept of trauma to include suffering terror. This should not make the term meaningless. Rather, one recognizes degrees and kinds of trauma. The impact of a major public event on relatives indirectly involved in terror I call ‘family’ or ‘quiet trauma,’ following other scholars” (1) This is precisely what I am talking about when I talk about the affects of slavery on some African Americans and the trauma that is the result of this history. This discussion continues on the next page, “One finds the complex interconnections between individual and cultural trauma—such that, indeed, where the ‘self’ begins and cultural impossible reactions end may seem impossible to determine” (my italics). This cultural trauma would be a combination of the potential trauma from slavery and other historical trauma mixed with experiences of others or cultural beliefs, such as the evil of whites and the police versus the actual incurred traumatic experience that may arise from actual confrontations.
Kaplan, later in the chapter, describes Kristeva who identifies two types of trauma, military or political and the personal and claims that both of these types of trauma damage “our systems of perception and representation” (Kristeva 222, Kaplan 5). Kaplan states that “This is important because there are some who want to reserve the concept of trauma only for public events, like the Holocaust” (5).
On page 26 Kaplan discusses Frued and Josef Breuer and the manner in the symptoms of hysteria are the result of trauma. Kaplan writes about their essay in Studies in Hysteria that “the clinicians not the way in which other ideas including fantasies get attached to the traumatic event. ‘A memory,’ they say, ‘of such a trauma… enter[s] the great complex of associations, it comes alongside other experiences, which may contradict it, and is subjected to rectification by other ideas’ (9). They note that after an accident, memory of the danger and repetition of the fright ‘become associated with the memory of what happened afterwards—rescue and the consciousness of present safety’” (26).
On page 34, Kaplan discusses Cathy Caruth’s definition of trauma, which is “‘a response, sometimes delayed, to an overwhelming event or set of events, which takes the form of repeated, intrusive hallucinations, dreams, thoughts or behaviors stemming form the event.’ The pathology, she notes, consist ‘solely in the structure of the experience or reception: the event is not assimilated or experienced fully at the time, but not belatedly in its repeated possession of the one who experiences it’ (Caruth, Trauma 4-5) ” (Kaplan 34).
I found a very important distinction which I need to keep in mind when undertaking study I this field. Kaplan states on page 39: “a main problem in trauma studies, which is distinguished different domains within which people work to relate to trauma. A basic distinction is that between the trauma victim and her work with a clinician (itself a contested site), and the work of scholars studying trauma (also a contested site). A second distinction is that between the many varied scholarly discourses about trauma—be these psychological, psychoanalytic, political, philosophic, sociological, or historical—and images of trauma in film and popular culture studied mainly by literary and media scholars. In practice, there is slippage between these arenas, but each discourse makes its own contribution. Each contributor needs to specify the terrain of her research so as to avoid speaking across, rather that to, one another” (39). I think it is imperative, as I work in the field, to remember the differences and remain in the second type of discourse and not venture into the first type. I am thankful to find this in Kaplan’s book so not to incur future embarrassment. I knew not to attempt to analyze the poet by their poetry, and I think this solidifies the idea of not doing so.
Pages 39 through 41 Kaplan discusses vicarious trauma which is defined by Pearlman and Saakvtine as “the deleterious effects of trauma on the therapist” (40). Kaplan asks on page 41 “why has the distinction between traumatic situations per se and vicarious ones not been written about much in literary and cultural studies? Why has the fact that most of us encounter vicarious, rather than direct, trauma not received more attention?” This is very interesting to me and plan on examining the affects of vicarious trauma on minority ethnic groups as well as those affected by direct trauma.
The writing of Janet Walker brings great validity to the examination of texts and the influence that trauma has on the text. As I have said only a few line earlier in regards to analyzing a poem is not the same as analyzing the poet, one can analyze the speaker of the poem and find palpable examples of trauma in the subject matter, actions, and dialogue of the poem. It would not be much a stretch, however, to say that the poets experiences obviously shape the subject matter and demeanor of the speaker of the poem in some way. Walker uses the term “traumatic paradox” and says that it deals with the manner in which “a common response to real trauma is fantasy” (Walker, “Traumatic Paradox” 809, Kaplan 42). Kaplan continues to discuss Walker and states about Walker, “She goes on to argue that the most effective films and videos about trauma are ‘those that figure the traumatic past as meaningful yet as fragmentary, virtually unspeakable, and striated with fantasy constructions” (809). Yet such memoirs are not ‘fiction’ in the usual meaning of the term. The writer struggling to communicate something powerful that happened in the past, something that the writer remembers (in the senses given above), but which we are no to read as a literary rendering of ‘truth’ as in the case of a witness in a court of law” (43).
The third chapter investigates collective or cultural trauma. Kaplan says of collective and cultural trauma,
“While individual trauma is always linked to the social sphere, give that social conditions shape trauma’s impact, traumatic events may affect the discourse of an entire nation’s public narrative. It would be reductive to apply to the collective or national trauma phenomena common in individuals, such as post-traumatic stress syndrome with the ‘splitting’ or dissociation it may involve. Yet history seems to provide examples of national ‘forgetting’ or displacement that require explanation, such as long delay in wide public and international discussion of World War II suffering, especially the Holocaust, or the delay in confronting slavery or the decimation of Native Americans in the United States. But even here are problems. Does an entire nation forget? Or only the perpetrators? Do dominant and powerful groups engineer a ‘forgetting’ through controlling discourses? Groups that have been victimized in a nation don’t ‘forget’—at least not in the same way as do the perpetrators. We need to heed Dominick LaCapra’s warning that ‘historical trauma is specific, and not everyone is subject to it or entitled to a subject position associated with it’ (Writing History 78). Yet, people in a nation who have been through a catastrophe such as war may need to ‘forget’ those experiences because they are too painful to deal with in the immediate aftermath of suffering. Kai Erikson ‘has argued that the social tissue of a community can be damaged in ways similar to the tissues of mind and body’ (Robben and Suarez-Orozco 24). Robben and Saurez-Orozco go on to explain, “Massive trauma ruptures social bonds, undermines community, destroys pervious sources of support and may even traumatize those members of a community, society or social group who were absent when the catastrophe or persecution took place (24)” (66-67).
It is this phenomena that makes me believe that the trauma that people of various ethnic groups have suffered though remain part of the collective culture and impact many within that culture. Japanese Americans, for example that have had relatives that lived in the United States during WWII and may have had relatives in the interment camps or have knowledge that they exists, as well as the racism that was perpetrated against them during and after the war would have to live with the scars of the cultural trauma and can be found in some of the poetry that I have read thus far. The impact of the past on African Americans and Native Americans, however, overshadow any other scars in regard to cultural trauma. More so than individual experiences, I believe that cultural trauma is what impacts the poetry of minorities and will be the main focal point of my investigation, unless the speaker within a poem identifies a specific trauma that occurred within their life.
Kaplan continues for the next few pages discussing collective and cultural trauma ultimately discussing the manner in which film and cinema are able to “become the mechanisms through which a culture can unconsciously address its traumatic hauntings” (69). I think this is true for literature as well. More importantly, Kaplan says on page 72, “I see melodrama as an aesthetic form (on the stage an in popular fiction) as produced from the traumas of class struggle and in the context of search for identity, social order, and clear moral rules by which to live in modernity. Stories and images, given shape to fictional lives, were needed as a disruptive modernism go underway to bolster other modes creating a new stable society. Personal and social traumas were displaced into fictional melodrama forms where they could be more safely approached” (72). It was this quote that brought escapism through fight versus flight to the forefront of my thinking in regards to trauma as discussed (or as an undertone) in poetry. Kaplan continues her thoughts more in depth on the next page saying, “The notion of melodrama repeats in fictional form and suppressed cultural trauma to do with the overthrow of prior authority parallels Freud’s theory developed toward the end of his life in Moses and Monotheism. Freud theorizes that the trauma of the Jews in the killing of Moses repeated an earlier crime of the primal horde’s murder of the powerful father-leader. Traces of the crime continue throughout history. Extending Freud’s theory, it is reasonable to argue that at certain historical moments aesthetic forms emerge (sometimes in a useful way) to accommodate fears and fantasies related to suppressed historical events. In repeating the trauma of class struggle, melodrama, in its very generic formation, may evidence a traumatic cultural symptom” (73).
In the fourth chapter Kaplan begins by discussing vicarious trauma in the media. Stories passed down from friends and relatives, documentaries, historical narratives, and other means of learning from the past can have a significant impact on how one understands their world and the history which molded our society and formed who we are. Much of history is riddled with violent atrocities and abuses directed toward specific ethnic groups perpetrated by other ethnic groups and can lead to resentment and ill feelings between the groups, such as the history between the Irish and the English, or, well, pretty much the English and everyone else. The impact that this learning and retelling of history can create vicarious trauma within individuals as well as collective or cultural trauma. Kaplan states, “Arguably, being vicariously traumatized invites members of a society to confront, rather than conceal, catastrophes, and in that way might be useful. On the other hand, it might arouse anxiety and trigger defense against further exposure” (87).
This type of trauma, however, such as a person hearing the recollections of a friend or relative discussing trauma inflicted upon them, should not be confused or treated as trauma directly inflicted upon them. Kaplan says of this, “In a certain sense, all media response should be seen as at most vicarious trauma, not as experiencing trauma itself. Even then, in some cases, vicarious trauma (as Hoffman noted for clinicians) may be a misnomer, since (to adapt Hoffman), spectators do not feel the protagonist’s trauma. They feel the pain evoked by empathy—arousing mechanisms interacting with their viewer has had firsthand traumas that are similar to those being portrayed. Nevertheless, it is possible to distinguish among spectator responses, as with therapists’ reactions, in terms of degree of arousal” (90).
To have a clearer understanding of vicarious trauma it would be useful to note the list of relationships to perceptions of trauma as outlined by Kaplan: “1) direct experience of trauma (trauma victim); 2) direct observation of another’s trauma (bystander, one step removed); 3) visually mediated trauma (i.e. moviegoer, viewing trauma on film or other media, two steps removed); 4) reading a trauma narrative and constructing visual image of semantic data (news reader, three steps removed); 5) hearing a patients trauma narrative” (91-92). Understanding these various types of experiences of trauma can benefit our overall comprehension of how different steps away from trauma can be identified. What also needs to be taken account of is the idea of empty empathy which portrayed by the media and other outlets of “empathy elicited by images of suffering provided without any context or background knowledge” (93).
Finally, Kaplan discusses her place as a critic in film and what it means to be a critic dealing with trauma. There have been times and will be times that I ask myself (and I a positive others will as well) what business do I have in the field of cultural studies, trauma studies, African American poetry, and multicultural poetry. After all, aren’t I part of the oppressive group that is responsible for the oppression of many of the cultures I am studying? With the aid of Kaplan, I am better equipped to answer this question. What I am doing is attempting to be a translator, suffering like many others from white guilt, and as such, I am hoping to help bridge the gap between cultures in order to bring peace and understanding. I am doing it because, although I have not consciously attempted or successfully oppressed anyone, there are undoubtedly those of my historical bloodline that have aided in the building and sustaining of an oppressive culture and I wish to undo some of the wrongs of my ancestors. Perhaps I will be able to also demonstrate to some African Americans and people of other cultures the perspective on ONE white man as he interprets poetry written by those outside of his own culture. In regards to trauma, I have been fortunate enough to have had several psychological classes as an undergraduate, thus I am not completely unfamiliar when it comes to psychology, especially trauma.
The study of African American poetry, Native American poetry, and poetry of other cultures which were oppressed, attacked, or enslaved by another is of particular interest of me in relation to trauma studies because of the traumatic histories of these cultures and the scars that maybe intertwined within the culture and people. Kaplan discusses this saying “This makes a great deal of sense in the context of ancestors of indigenous peoples who suffered violence and catastrophe through Western invaders of their land. Much Native American fiction (such as that by Louise Erdrich) includes images of powerful haunting, and readers will see the relevance to the phantom in Toni Morrison’s Beloved [or August Wilson’s The Piano Player]. In these cases, subjects are haunted by the trauma of their parents even as their lives may take on less catastrophic forms. Those to whom the catastrophe happened may only recall the past indirectly or dimly because of the blockage to cognition; they may suffer a delayed response in the form of repeated, intrusive hallucinations, dreams, thoughts, or behaviors [Yusef Komunyakka comes to mind]. But in transgenerational trauma subjects are haunted by tragedies affecting their parents, grandparents, or ancestors from far back without conscious knowledge. In a sense, transgenerational trauma is a kind of unconscious vicarious trauma. It is partly in order to bring such tragedies to consciousness that filmmakers like Alanis Obomsawin undertake their work” (106). The same can be said for many poets which I am examining in my other lists.