Public and Private Sides of Life Narratives
Many of the texts that we have come across this term deal with issues of trauma. This post will focus on how trauma is portrayed, and how the narrator grapples with traumatic experiences in Missing Sarah and The World is Moving Around Me. In Reading Autobiography, Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson suggest that readers of life narratives should consider “what kind of understanding seems to be achieved?” when autobiographical texts engage in issues of “traumatic or obsessive memory” (172). My findings suggest that the expression of trauma is able to contribute to de Vries’ healing process when dealing with the loss of her sister, and assist Lafarrère in bringing readers a better understanding of his nation in the wake of a traumatic earthquake; at the same time, however, this expression points to a sort of tension between the public and private aspects of life narratives.
In Missing Sarah, Maggie de Vries depicts the past of her sister, Sarah de Vries, from the time that she was adopted into her family as a child, to her adult years as a sex worker in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. In writing the narrative, de Vries deals with the loss of her sister by engaging in the cathartic act of remembering. Maggie points out in the narrative’s epilogue that her therapist, who specializes in “helping people deal with vicarious trauma, suggests that Maggie “needed to speak the terrible thoughts in [her] head” (270-271). The process of writing serves a similar purpose for Maggie, as she transcribes her inner thoughts and memories of her sister onto pages. Though therapeutic, remembering Sarah in the form of a published narrative creates problems for Maggie. As Sarah suffered the same fate as many other women from the Downtown Eastside, Maggie felt compelled to portray Sarah’s experience as part of a collective past. As mentioned in class, however, editors and publishers of the text wanted Maggie to focus on her sister’s story, and not similar experiences of other missing women. Further, they requested her to remove passages that expressed guilt. In discouraging Maggie from documenting and publishing the narrative with a personal, emotional undertone, editors and publishers go against the expression approach that her therapist suggests in dealing with trauma. This hints at the problematic tension between the public and private narrative. Unlike a public narrative that is under semi-regulation by publishers, a private narrative is where Maggie is able to truly express herself and engage in the recovery process. Editorial guidelines which regulate narratives that become public and published, therefore, discourage Maggie from including and writing experiences that ultimately help her overcome the traumatic hold that Sarah’s death has on her.
Tension between the public and private is also prevalent in Danny Laferrière’s The World is Moving Around Me. While Laferrière does not deal with the tragic loss of a close family member like de Vries, the 7.0 magnitude Haitian earthquake nonetheless causes unspeakable anguish for him and his compatriots. In documenting the catastrophic event, Laferrière, like de Vries, presents a complicated version of the struggle and tension between public and private perceptions. For Laferrière, public perception is the way that the international world perceives Haiti. And “private” in this case does not necessarily mean private inner thoughts; instead, it refers to the image of Haiti that is true to the country’s culture and conditions, but private in the sense that it has not yet been witnessed by the world. The mango vendor who, despite the disaster, continues her livelihood and business exemplifies the intimate and real image of Haiti that Laferrière wants us to see. This touching scene causes the narrator to reflect: “I hear Saint-Éloi’s voice behind me: ‘What a country!” These people are so used to finding life in difficult conditions that they could bring hope down to hell” (32). The mango vendor image is a contrast to what he describes as the way that the world sees his country. “Suddenly, toward the end of the 1980s, people started talking about Haiti only in terms of poverty and corruption” (75). This public, negative perception of Haiti frustrates Lafierrère deeply, and drives him to tell readers that “a country is never corrupt – but its ruling class can be.” Instead of accepting the superficial perception of Haiti, the narrator urges the world to accept the personal and intimate representation of Haiti that he portrays – a nation that “despite endemic poverty, manage to keep their dignity.”
Both de Vries and Laferrière, in sum, portray the tension between the public and private sides of their life narratives.
Smith, Sidonie and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2001. Print.