The Role of Memory and Trauma in Postcolonial Literature: A Critical Examination of Chinua Achebe and J.M. Coetzee

Abstract

This paper discusses the role of memory and trauma in the selected novels by Chinua Achebe and J.M. Coetzee, two postcolonial literary masters. Thus, the research focuses on how these authors – through the 'Things Fall Apart' and 'Disgrace' novels – write histories and histories of individuals. Memory and trauma are studied as two principal ways postcolonial societies interact with their pasts and histories to build the future, making them essential themes of the literature written in the postcolonial nations. The paper also proves that memory is a means of erasing colonial histories and preserving indigenous histories and self in the context of colonization. It also broadens how trauma, that is, mental and social harm, inscribes historical and cultural memory and identity and how it shapes new identity and storying in postcolonial contexts. The comparative study thus increases understanding of how Achebe and Coetzee use memory and trauma to either undermine or support postcolonial subjectivities and how this affects the postcolonial discussion of resistance and identity formation.

More specifically, the research contributes to the development of literary analysis and postcolonialism as two branches of knowledge, as it positions the analyzed literary constructions of memory and trauma in socio-political and historical contexts. It supplements and informs RE: Writing the Self and other courses related to the themes of narrative strategies used to represent subjectivity and emotion in literary texts and the consequences and implications of colonialism as seen in postcolonial literature. This research, therefore, underlines the importance of acknowledging historical trauma in the attempts to restore and heal society. It also deepens our understanding of the role of postcolonial literature in narrating, challenging, and healing colonialism's impact. In doing so, it provides information that is useful not only in academic discourse but also in debates about cultural memory and recognition.