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Thèse Année : 2021

THE POETICS OF TRAUMA IN JON MCGREGOR’S FICTION : IMPACTING COGNITION AND SELF-IDENTITY

LA POÉTIQUE DU TRAUMATISME DANS LA FICTION DE JON MCGREGOR : IMPACT SUR LA COGNITION ET L'IDENTITÉ PERSONNELLE

Résumé

In trauma, there is no short-cut for healing: trauma victims cannot manifest a clear-cut willingness to own up to their traumatic experiences as their own during the period following their traumatic accidents. With the exception of a few cases, most traumatized individuals do not initially display a manifest tendency for working-through, the positive response to a traumatic event. Instead, they essentially demonstrate a proclivity for denial, the negative reaction to a traumatic accident. They subsequently exhibit a predominant rejection of their otherwise unbearably painful experiences. This accounts for the fact that a traumatic incident is essentially a cathectic event, highly charged in terms of emotions. As such, it cannot be assimilated in one fell swoop, leading to denial which, however negative on the surface, is still deeply positive, indispensable for the gradual assimilation of a traumatic event (Amfreville 38). In denial, trauma victims do not display the slightest tendency for the integration of their horrendous past experiences into their narrative memories. Rather they unconsciously keep them in their subconscious as a dissociated part of the self. They subsequently manifest a proclivity for the compulsive repetition of these frightful experiences. Following suit, the characters of Jon McGregor’s novels sometimes reject their atrocious past experiences. Their behaviour culminates in inhibition and phobia towards the other, be it their traumatic pasts or other people around. It eventually results in emotional numbness along with cognitive closure. This is due to the fact that, in denial, the life drive, along with its intrinsic tendency for openness towards anything new, congeals, while the death drive, with its proclivity for emotional and cognitive closure, dominates over the self. Under the dominant influence of the death drive, the characters eventually become fixated to their traumatic past, uncontrollably reiterating their traumatic scenes in a way that is somehow self-destructive (Goldberg 2). The acting-out of those frightening experiences is not the outcome of an inadequate emotional response. What is ultimately missing in the reaction of the traumatized individuals is neither the courage in bearing witness to a deeply dehumanizing event, nor the depth of emotional responses. Instead, it is the cognitive incapacity of a traumatized person to assimilate the totality of what was really happening at the time (Caruth, Exploration 69). Experts in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders intimate that trauma is not exclusively an emotional experience, but also and mainly a cognitive phenomenon. In denial, as in working-through, traumatic experiences mainly impress the cognitive capacities of traumatized individuals. In denial, for instance, a trauma victim demonstrates a clear-cut cognitive closure. This stands for the fact that, in denial, the death instinct, as already noted, prevails over the self. This instinct, essentially destructive and constrictive, dispossesses the traumatized person of his/her sexual desires which are otherwise essential for cognitive evolution. Under the spell of the death drive, the characters of McGregor’s novels display symptoms of cognitive closure, rarely adjusting to new experiences. Rather, they frequently remain fixated to their preconceived conception of the world, transmuting most of their new experience along their past knowledge. Their cognitive behaviour is to some extent reminiscent of an egocentric child who does not manifest a tendency to adjust his inner preconceptions of the world, but demonstrates an evident penchant for an excessive form of assimilation whereby he remodels any new experience so as to make it fit his past knowledge...
Cette thèse interroge les écrits de Jon McGregor en s’appuyant sur une approche fondéesur diverses théories psychologiques et l’éthique de l’altérité. Ce qu’elle vise à démontrer,c’est comment la poétique de McGregor est évocatrice des effets perturbateurs dutraumatisme sur la cognition et l’identité personnelle qui sont les deux piliers du moi.C’est pourquoi on a postulé que les récits de l’auteur ont un potentiel éthique. En effet,en exposant les lecteurs à un matériel traumatique dépassant leurs capacités cognitiveset leurs identités personnelles, ces récits servent de révélation. Ils éveillent les lecteurs à leursvulnérabilités ontologiques, ce qui est la clé pour être attentif aux autres êtres du monde, ycompris les plus minuscules qui d’habitude paraissent insignifiants.Aussi paradoxal que cela puisse paraître, la fiction de l’auteur est aussi un exempled’égocentrisme, au sens où Jean Piaget l’entend, c’est-à-dire la propension cognitive des agentspréopérationnels, en particulier des enfants de moins de sept ans, à réduire tout ce qu’ils viventà une seule perspective, la leur. Comme le propose la thèse, ce comportement cognitif est unmécanisme de défense par lequel les personnages traumatisés tentent d’échapper à leur passéétrange, ce qui rend problématique leur capacité à accéder à l’altérité. En effet, ils font preuved’une impulsion incessante d’ouverture à l’autre qui correspond tout à fait à la conception lévinassiennede la relation éthique. Cependant, cette impulsion est toujours inchoative, car elle estconstamment contrecarrée par la propension
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Dates et versions

tel-03441678 , version 1 (22-11-2021)

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  • HAL Id : tel-03441678 , version 1

Citer

Yahya Daldoul. LA POÉTIQUE DU TRAUMATISME DANS LA FICTION DE JON MCGREGOR : IMPACT SUR LA COGNITION ET L'IDENTITÉ PERSONNELLE. Littératures. Université Paul Valéry - Montpellier III, 2021. Français. ⟨NNT : 2021MON30020⟩. ⟨tel-03441678⟩
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