Challenging Trauma’s Invisibility: Constructing Voice in AlAmmar’s Silence is a Sense
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1305.26Keywords:
Arab spring, trauma, voicelessness, identity, resistance, exposureAbstract
Traumatic experiences often leave one suppressed and spiritually weak due to marginalization and voicelessness. This article aims to show how the protagonist in Silence is a Sense manipulates the disadvantages following and associated with trauma to create her own voice. Layla AlAmmar employs the theme of trauma to elaborate on refugees’ need to concede their own power of speech, acknowledging their past, present and future existence. Through textual analysis, the researcher examines voicelessness as a political, social and cultural challenge to subjugation. Recording her memories, Rana establishes a resisting voice and becomes known as The Voiceless. Interestingly, readers only know her name at the very end, in an indication that Rana’s story is no different than any other refugee with any other name. Eventually, AlAmmar succeeds in using the motif of muteness in order to expose the disastrous result of the war especially after the Arab Spring.
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