Narrating Trauma and the Possibility of Re-Storying Identity in Farhad Pirbal's Potato Eaters

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Assistant Professor of English and literature, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran

https://doi.org/10.34785/J016.2020.120

Abstract

The present study intends to read Farhad Pirbal's collection of short stories, Potato Eaters (2000), based on the theory of narrative therapy. Narrative therapy as an interdisciplinary field, founded by Michael White (1988-1988), uses psychological and sociological findings in the treatment of traumatic events on the one hand, and narrative techniques and storytelling on the other to help the patient with the adverse psychological effects of past traumatic events. Based on this outlook, analyzing the character-narrators of Pirbal in this collection of stories, this study attempts to examine personal trauma in the contexts of family, ethnicity, and more extended contexts because a person's pain and concern can be that of a larger group; the problem of a person can be that of a community. The stories of the Potato Eaters explore the traumatic past of the characters and the possibility of rewriting it in a different way to eliminate its effects. This study shows that the narrators of Pirbal, as representatives and survivors of the Iraqi Kurds during the tense period that led to the chemical bombing and genocide of them known as Anfal, by Saddam Hussein, recount and re-story the traumatic events of those times in order to alleviate those wounds. They hope to be able to have peace by rewriting their stories in a different way. Although some of them do not succeed, the fact is the character-narrators attempt to do this.

Keywords

References

 
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