Forgetting/Remembering Trauma: Reclaiming the Lost Identities in Toni Morrison's “Song of Solomon”, S. J. Watson's “Before I Go to Sleep” and Bothina El-Eisa's “Aisha Descends to Underworld”

This paper focuses on reclaiming lost identity – both collectively and individually – through remembering the traumatic events in three novels: Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (1977), S. J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep (2011), and Bothina El-Eisa’s Aisha Descends to Underworld (2012). Trauma affects identity formation in which traumatic experience creates a fragmented identity since the traumatic event marks a departure from the coherent life story. Trauma is associated with a forgotten event in which memories have been repressed even without the individuals active knowledge of repression. Forgetting traumatic events refers to the victims inability and unwillingness to confront the trauma he/she experienced. The act of remembering helps the fragmented self to negotiate and transform his/her past and in that way provide agency and meaning to individual’s sense of self. Memories of the trauma haunt the traumatized individuals to be remembered and to speak within the person’s memory. Remember is a vision rooted in the need to witness history in order to reclaim what must not be forgotten. In the three novels, the protagonists find healing by remembering their traumatic past. For the three protagonists, forgetting or denying the traumatic past lead to lose their identities and lose their social connections. The loss which protagonists suffer either because of dementia, or death, or forgetting the history of family, causes the loss of their own identities. To be able to reclaim their identities they must remember and confront their traumatic past.