
Song o' the Post: "Time Marches On"
I feel like this song rather appropriately relates to Caruth's ideas about latency. Even though a traumatic event can't be fully understood immediately after it happens, time will not stop to allow one to process the event and its repercussions. So unfortunately, that event is repressed until a later time when it is brought to the surface in a typically scarring way, such as a hallucination or nightmare.

And when these "gaps in the mind" are discovered, we are faced with the choice to deal with that trauma or continue on with our lives (the "never forget" vs. "never look back" groups). This can be difficult, as noted by Harries who sets out to determine if the spectatorship of trauma can actually destroy a person.
And if the decision is made to relive these traumatic experiences, the matter at hand becomes one of self-inflicted pain and masochism. 
This, of course leads to the question of which is more healthy: to remember or forget?
No comments:
Post a Comment